Thursday, December 17, 2009

Carne Adovada


I found this versitile recipe for slow roasted pork seasoned with New Mexican chiles on use real butter.  I like Tex-Mex, I love Mexican food, I like burritos, tacos, and chimichangas and carne advada is a multi-purpose filling for almost any Tex-Mex recipe.  I think it came out pretty well.

When I read "carne" I assumed this was made with beef (which I don't prefer), but when I found out the recipe actually called for pork I got really happy.  My husband makes fun of me because I am always trying to find new recipes for my beloved pork loin and pork tenderloin.  I agree with the recipe creator that this recipe would be better with pork butt or pork shoulder, but I had a pork loin with a considerable layer of fat in my deep freeze, so I opted to use what I had for this experiment.


The marinade is made from dried chiles (easy to find at my Shop Rite, but depending on where you live, you may need to hit up a Latin American market).  It also has garlic (yum!), oregano, and I added coriander seed. 


The chiles are roasted, soaked, then pureed with oregano, garlic, coriander, and salt to create a marinade for the pork.  I let the pork chill in the fridge for a day before I roasted it for four hours.


The result was soft, well-seasoned (but not spicy hot), moist (but not greasy) pork.  We rolled ours in soft flour tortillas.  I ate some of the leftovers mixed in with beans and rice.  The only bad thing is that we live in a household of two, so we got sick of eating it after two or three days and ended up wasting some (I suppose we could have frozen it). 

Carne Adovada
from use real butter

16 dried, red chile pods  I used Guajillo chiles
3 tsp salt  I added a little extra salt
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp oregano
1 t. ground coriander (my addition)
5 pounds pork (any tender cut) (*jen’s note, use pork shoulder)  I used pork loin, but a shoulder would be better

Preheat oven to 325F. Remove stems from the chile pods. Place pods in a pan and bake for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until chiles are lightly roasted. Leave oven door open (I didn’t do this). Don’t breathe the fumes! I shook the seeds out of the pods and discarded them. Place pods in a medium bowl and cover them with boiling water. Let them sit for 30 minutes.

 Drain the water from the chile pods, but reserve about 2 cups for the purée. Place pods in a food processor or blender. Add the salt, garlic, and oregano. Cover the mixture with the chile water. Blend well for 2 minutes or until the skins disappear.

Cut the pork into 2×4 inch strips. Place the pork in a ziploc bag and add the sauce. Thoroughly coat the pork. Refrigerate for 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 325F. Place pork and sauce in a baking dish. Cover and bake for 4 hours or until meat is tender. Shred or chop meat.

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