West Texas Asado
Source of Recipe
TX Monthly
List of Ingredients
West Texas Asado (adapted from Mark Flowers)
Ingredients:
16 dried ancho chiles
1 large head of garlic (10 cloves or dientes as it’s said in Spanish) the cloves crushed.
3 pounds of boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes
3 tablespoons of lard, bacon grease or peanut oil
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/2 cup of cilantro, chopped
2 teaspoons of Mexican oregano (or regular oregano if you can’t find Mexican oregano)
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
1. Take the chiles and remove stems and seeds (can reserve seeds to spice up asado later). Place chiles in a large bowl, pour warm water over them and then add two crushed cloves of garlic and 1 teaspoon of salt to bowl. Let soak overnight or for eight hours.
2. After chiles have softened, throw out the soaking water (it will be bitter) and place chiles in a blender with 1/2 cup of fresh water. Puree until a thick paste is formed—it should be about four cups of puree.
3. In a saucepan, sauté on medium heat the diced onion in one tablespoon of lard, bacon grease or oil until cooked and starting to brown, about ten minutes. Add the remaining 8 cloves of crushed garlic (about 1/3 cup) and cook for one more minute. Add the chile paste, 1 cup of water, the cilantro, Mexican oregano, salt and pepper.
4. Cook chile sauce on medium heat for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Don’t be alarmed, but it will probably dramatically bubble and heave.
5. Generously salt and pepper pork cubes. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of lard to a disco, Dutch oven or skillet (may do this in batches) and brown meat on all sides.
6. Add chile sauce to meat, and cook covered on low heat for 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
7. Serve topped with cotija or wrapped in flour tortillas.
Serves 8.
Note: When using dried chiles, you want them to be soft and pliable like raisins—this means they're fresh. If they're brittle and crumbly, they're old and not worth the money. I spent the better part of a Saturday afternoon searching for fresh, affordable anchos in lower Manhattan and I found the best ones were, of course, at a Mexican market (Zaragoza on Avenue A).
Mark Flowers explains how to make your own disco (for cooking, not dancing)
1. Get the materials: One disc harrow blade (go to www.tractorsupply.com and search for "Grizzly Stallion Blade Plain 20 in.”; one 1.25"x 1.25" seven ga piece of steel; and two 3/8" diameter x 4” wide square "U" bolts.
2. Cut the small piece of steel to fit the square hole in the disc. Weld that piece into the hole.
3. Weld the “U” bolts on opposite sides of the underside (the convex side) the disc to serve as handles.
4. Grind away the rough edges of the welds so that the interior of the disc and the underside of the disk are smooth.
5. Sandblast the disc to remove the remant black paint. (I don't have a sandblaster, so I took my disc to “Nipco” a machine shop here in Odessa. They didn’t charge me. When I offered to pay, they said, “Hell, that didn't take but a minute, besides, I wouldn't feel right charging you to strip your disc.” Mighty neighborly, I thought.
7. Season it like I’m sure your grandmother did her cast-iron skillet. Cook with it over a gas flame.
Recipe
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