Sunday, August 25, 2013

How to fail at Pork Roast without really trying

I often cook with a little more attention to detail on Tuesday, then post about it on social media. I've decided to bring some of those posts over here, especially on Sundays when news is lighter.

Last Tuesday, I failed to cook pork shoulder in a roasted tomatillo sauce. Here are my directions for you to fail as well.

1. Take out pork shoulder. Open package. Think, "huh, that smells funny." Rinse to make sure it's not cryovac stink. It's not. Put pork in fridge to return to store tomorrow.
2. Take out chicken breast. Dice. Coat with a cumin-salt-pepper-flour mix. Brown then remove.
3. Sautee onions and garlic on low in the pan. Keep it low. No, you're not done yet. Keep the heat low. Wait. Wait some more. Add thyme or something else delicious from my herb garden. Or better yet, your herb garden.
4. Roast tomatillos (mine were from my garden. No, you can't have the ones from my garden. I can give away one, well, maybe half, a tomato though) and peppers. I used poblanos because my wife likes a tiny tang of heat, but no more. Remove seeds from poblanos and put them in the blender with the tomatillos. Blend.
5. Decide you need more color, so put in some sweet red and orange peppers too. There, that looks right.
6. Open a beer. You might need to deglaze the pan with it.
7. Drink beer.
8. Open another beer. You might need to deglaze the pan with it.
9. Deglaze pan with beer. Add tomatillo-pepper mix. Wait a minute thinking, "Wow, that's going to be good."
10. Add a little more liquid. Maybe there's more beer in the house somewhere, this bottle seems to be empty. Squeeze a little lime on it. Test for heat, salt, etc.
11. Add chicken back in. Cover and wait 20-60 minutes. The chicken is done, but if you cook it on low, it won't dry out. Well, mine didn't dry out. Are you saying I make dry chicken?
12. Fail to make sofrito-infused rice by cooking the rice in oil for a minute or three, then opening the jar of sofrito - and no, that's not cheating, its delicious - and discovering it has mold on it. So just make rice in stock. Don't worry, there's lots of sauce with the chicken.
14. Prepare/make sides: Guacamole, picked red onions, black beans, cilantro, green onions, sour cream.
15. Serve chicken on rice with sides.
16. Wonder where all the beer went.