Salsa verde carnitas

Carnitas are the Mexican version of pulled pork. Braised first in a spicy sauce, pork shoulder is slow cooked until so tender the meat just shreds easily with a fork, then it's roasted at high heat to make crispy browned bits full of flavor. It's taco meat, burrito meat, or just stewy meat served with rice and beans. This version of carnitas is cooked first in a braise of tomatilla salsa verde, or green salsa. It's delicious served with fresh corn tortillas and topped with a shredded cabbage slaw, Cotija cheese, avocado, and Mexican sour cream.

3 1/2 pounds pork butt (pork shoulder)

2 cups salsa verde, bottled, canned, or homemade

1 onion, finely chopped

3 cups chicken stock

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

2 teaspoons coriander seeds

1 Tbsp fresh chopped oregano (or 1 teas dried)

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Salt

12 to 16 corn tortillas, heated and softened

1/4 head of cabbage, very thinly sliced

1 teaspoons olive oil

1 teaspoon seasoned rice vinegar (if you only have unseasoned, add 1/4 teaspoon of sugar to it)

Salt and pepper

1 avocado, peeled, seeded, and chopped

1/2 cup crumbled Cotija Mexican farmer's cheese, or some grated Monterey Jack cheese

Crema fresca, crema Mexican, or sour cream

Chopped cilantro leaves for garnish

1 Trim the excess fat from the roast. Put the meat in a large casserole or Dutch oven with salsa verde, onion, stock, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, and oregano. Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat, cover, and simmer until meat is very tender when pierced, about 3 hours.

2 Preheat oven to 400°F. Remove meat from liquid in pot and put the meat into a roasting pan. With 2 forks, tear meat into large shreds. Roast meat for 15 to 20 minutes until parts are brown and crispy.

3. While the meat is roasting, skim and discard fat from liquid in the casserole pan. Boil juices, stirring, until reduced to 2 1/2 cups, 8 to 10 minutes.

4 Return the meat to the Dutch oven. Stir in chopped cilantro. Season with salt.

Serve with heated and softened corn tortillas (20 seconds each in the microwave spread out over a paper towel will heat and softened packaged tortillas sufficiently), diced avocado, crumbed Cotija or grated Monterey jack cheese, sour cream (or crema fresca), and seasoned cabbage slaw.

Seasoned Cabbage Slaw

Place thinly sliced cabbage in a medium sized bowl. Sprinkle on olive oil, seasoned rice vinegar, salt and pepper. You can substitute white vinegar or apple cider vinegar for the rice vinegar, if you do, sprinkle on some sugar to help balance the acidity of the vinegar. Toss. Adjust seasonings. Let sit for 10 minutes for the cabbage to absorb some of the dressing.

Serves 6.

SimplyRecipes.com

Longganisa chorizo, favorite Filipino breakfast

Longganisa is widely available in most supermarkets and wet markets. Even the skinless variety is not difficult to find. Longganisa is native sausage. The seasonings vary depending on the regional origin. Lucban and Vigan longganisa are garlicky, for instance. Then there is the sweet longganisacalled hamonado. Longganisa comes in various sizes as well. Some are made with beef or chicken instead of pork. Sweet or spicy, small or large, longganisa is a popular Filipino breakfast item. If there is a tapsilog for the combo of tapa(fried beef strips), sinangag (fried rice) and itlog (egg), there islongsilog for longganisa, sinangag and itlog.

To make longganisa, you will need:

1 kilo ground pork, 10% fat

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon rock salt (or 1 1/2 teaspoon fine salt)

1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon garlic, chopped

1/2 teaspoon black peper, ground.

Instructions:

Blend all the above ingredients.

Roll a small amount of the pork mixture in a 4 1/2 inches x 3 inches wax paper

Store in the freezer for 3 hours or until ready to cook.

When ready to cook, heat oil in a wok or frying-pan.

Unwrap the sausages and fry in batches in hot oil until fully cooked.

Drain on paper towels.

Garnish with spring onion, if desired, and served with rice and tomatoes or Garlic-Vinegar Dip.

These sausages can also be frozen until needed.

Makes 18-20 sausages

Preparation time: 30 mins + 3 hours chilling

Cooking time: 30 mins

Delicious, easy pork roast that everyone raves about

1 kg. pork

1 cup soy sauce

1 head garlic, minced

1 onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup of calamansi juice or lemon juice

1/2 cup of 7up, sprite or beer (optional)

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

3 tablespoons of brown or white sugar

1/2 cup of banana or tomato catsup

In a mixing bowl, marinate the cut pork with the soy sauce, minced garlic, chopped onions, calamansi juice, ground pepper, sugar, banana catsup and the soda or beer (this tenderizes and adds flavour to the pork)

Mix well and keep in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes (turning occasionally).

Place roast on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Bake, uncovered, at 325 degrees for 2-1/2 hours or until a meat thermometer reads 160-170 degrees. Let stand for 15 minutes before slicing. Refrigerate or freeze remaining pork (may be frozen for up to 3 months).

Home cooked porkribs teriyaki

Teriyaki dishes are found in many different type of cuisine nowadays, even in Mexican and Western dishes. Then, what is teriyaki? It's a way of Japanese cooking. The word, teriyaki is a combination of two Japanese words "teri" and "yaki." Teri means luster, and yaki means grill or broil.

To make a teriyaki dish, ingredients are broiled, roasted, or grilled after being marinated in or basted by teriyaki sauce. It's the teriyaki sauce that brings the shiny look (teri) to the ingredients. This is the real teriyaki, although any dish cooked with teriyaki sauce seems to be called teriyaki nowadays, whether the ingredients are Japanese or not.

You can buy teriyaki sauce in a bottle at the grocery store, but authentic teriyaki sauce is very easy to make. To make teriyaki sauce, you need soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. (If you don't have mirin, you can substitute it with sake and sugar.) The key ingredient in teriyaki sauce is mirin (sweet rice wine). Mirin adds luster to ingredients. Teriyaki sauce can be used for glazing and marinating meats and vegetables.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup *mirin (sweet rice wine) (soy sauce : mirin = 1:1)
• 2 tbsp sugar

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Stir the mixture well. Put it on medium heat and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low and simmer for a couple minutes. Stop the heat and cool the mixture. Store the sauce in a clean bottle in the fridge.

*You can substitute mirin with sake and sugar (sake:sugar = 3:1) ** Adjust the amount of sugar, depending on your preference.

Enjoy cooking!