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Tacos al Pastor
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* 10 chiles Pasilla
* 10 chiles Guajillo
* 1/2 garlic bulb
* 1/4 litter White Vinegar
* 1/4 tsp. Cumin
* 5 cloves
* salt
* pineapple (fresh or canned)
* 2 lbs thin pork meat
* 1 onion
* Fresh cilantro (coriander)
* 1 Beer
* 2 Limes
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Tacos al Pastor is perhaps the best taco you could ever try. The problem is that good tacos are hard to find the United States since the recipe is such a secret.
In Mexico city there are taquerias dedicated mostly or even exclusively to tacos al Pastor. Tacos al Pastor are made from pork meat that has been marinated in a secret recipe and then cooked in a rotisserie with pineapple on top. The tacos should be very small (almost like 2 bites size) and garnished with cilantro (coriander), chopped onion and the pineapple. Add your favorite hot sauce.
This space was empty for a long time and I apologize for it. The recipe I started with was not bad, but it was not as good as I wanted it to be. I sent this recipe to Mexico City to be reviewed but nobody would talk much about it. Then in my last visit I wanted to have someone review it but I encountered the same problem.
The fact is that everyone seems to have a different list of ingredients for the marinade and nobody wants to share it. It is after all their business to keep their recipe different and better from others as well as secret.
Below is the recipe I started with, if you experiment with it and improve on it, please tell me about it. Other ingredients mentioned are achiote and red vinegar.
Pre-cooking:
* Cut the pork meat in thin stakes or slices if necessary. Normally each stake would rest on top of each other while marinating and cooking.
The following is the recipe for the marinade, this is a lot so you won't have to make it very often.
* Take the seeds out of the chiles, cut them in little pieces and mash them together with the garlic, cloves, and cumin, avoid touching the chiles and vinegar with your bare hands if possible. The vinegar and chiles can cook your hands, trust me. A food processor would help here.
* Boil the ingredients from the above step in the vinegar until it makes some sort of a heavy paste. Making sure that it won't burn, so mix it often.
* Once fully cooked drink the beer while you let the marinade cool down.
Apply the paste to the meat putting one steak on top of the other. At a real taqueria they would form a top that eventually goes into the rotisserie. Since we do not have the rotisserie you simply pile the meat together and store in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight.
Cooking:
* In a taqueria they would roast the top of meat with pineapple on top of it so that the juice gives the meat some of its flavor. The meat would be rotated constantly as the cook cuts very small slices of meat and pineapple to be served in a taco.
* Chop the cilantro and onion.
* Without a rotisserie, our only choice is to cut the pork in small bits so that it can be eaten easily in a taco.
* Use a frying pan and cook the meat with small pieces of pineapple making sure the pork is fully cooked and just about to burn in some cases (well roasted).
* Cut the limes in quarters.
* Serve the tacos with chopped cilantro, onion, and the limes.
Tips:
* I definitely need some this time. Or perhaps you'd like to send me a rotisserie.
* Squeeze a lit bit of lime juice in the taco before you eat it and add habanero salsa.
* If you only have large tortillas, cut them using a small plate of the size you want and a knife.
* For microwave, add 17 seconds per tortilla and heat them between paper napkins.
Click on www.batista.org to see Ricardo and Katherine's home page
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Preparation Time: |
Serves: 4 |
| Recipe Origin: Mexico |
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Submitted by: |
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Ricardo Batista
California
United States |
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| This recipe has been viewed 59301 times. |
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