I had my first kitchen disaster in quite some time today. It wasn't a disaster because it tasted bad, but it's taking years off our lives and this was entirely My Fault.
This disaster had its genesis when I was pretending to work the other day. I was pretending to work while talking to my colleague Brian C, who is a serious-but-carefree home cook and also one of my favorite people to pretend to work with. We were talking about the issues that come with serving the multitudes at The Holidays, and he mentioned that he tries to keep a pot of pork-and-tomatillo stew on the stove at all times because it's easy to make, improves upon sitting and everyone loves it. Brian told me about his technique, which is novel; instead of cubing the pork shoulder he leaves it whole, browns it off, cooks it in a vat of onions and garlic and poblanos and tomatillos and things, and simmers it forever and when the meat is done he shreds it, removing the nasty fatty gristly bits, and returns it to the primordial soup from whence it came. This rang my bell because pork is cheap and delicious, but I can't hang with the unknown quantity, the gristly chunky globules, that often occur with pork stews. I had three pounds of pork shoulder left over from my Christmas pate project (which I really should blog), and I decided to make it into Brian's chile verde for me and Ceej.
I heated my little Le Creuset Dutch oven and browned the pork (which set off the smoke detector). I sweated onions and garlic and cumin in the drippings, then I added about a pound and a half of of chopped tomatillos (I'd never cooked with them before; they're fun to get undressed) and four cleaned and chopped poblano peppers, and some canned jalapenos for heat, and a bay leaf, and some Swanson's chicken broth. I returned the pork to the pot and put it all in the oven at 350 to become delicious. This took about three and a half hours.
I had a clever idea in mind: when the pork was done I would remove it, hit the rest of the stew with the immersion blender, put the pork back in so it wouldn't get dry, and park it in the fridge overnight. I thought that the inch and a half of rendered pork fat that floated to the surface at the end of the cooking process would get a bit confused at the blending, but that chilling would allow it to reconvene so I could scrape it off in the morning, and we would get all the savor without abusing our serum cholesterol too badly.
Unfortunately this morning I found that the immersion blender did its job too well, and the fat refused to rise. It was entirely incorporated. I shredded the pork and picked it over, and reheated everything hoping the oil slick would reappear so I could at least try to spoon it off. This didn't happen. Eventually we got impatient, dumped the chile verde over tortilla chips and ate it with cilantro and queso fresco, and it was real, real good, but don't be surprised if my next post comes from the cardiac ward.
Note to self: next time chill BEFORE BLENDING. Dammit.
(This was really delicious though)
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