Sweet and Spicy Shredded Pork Tacos. Yes, Please.

Early b'day present: Love. It.

Ok people. I'm just going to say it now. This one is a keeper.

Chris and I were out the week before Halloween and I got an early birthday present in the form of America's Test Kitchen's Slow Cooker Revolution (highly recommend).

There were so many recipes to choose from but I settled on the Sweet and Spicy Shredded Pork. It was the right choice.

Here's the recipe:

3 dried Ancho Chiles (or 3 tablespoons ancho chile powder)
2 dried Chipotle Chiles (or 2 tablespoons chipotle chile powder)
3/4 cup pineapple juice (fresh or canned)
4 peel garlic cloves
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teasponon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 (3-pound) boneless pork butt roast, trimmed and halved (or two pork tenderloins, as I used)
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

If you have dried chiles: toast them in a skillet over medium high heat until dry and fragrant (4 to 6 minutes) Reomove from heat if they start to smoke. Let chiles cool slightlym remove seeds (if you want, leave them in for heat), cover with warm water and let soak until softened but not mushy (about 20 minutes) Drain well.

Puree soaked chiles (or powdered chiles - I had dried anchos but used powdered chipotles since I couldn't find dried. Next time I'll use some canned chipotles but I don't think it made a big difference) pineapple juice, garlic, sugar, cumin, and cloves in blender until smooth (ish) - about 30 seconds.  Transfer to slow cooker.

I added a step here: take pork (which we let sit overnight coated in pepper, garlic, chipotle and ancho chile powders) and brown it on 4 sides in a skillet.

Add pork to slow cooker, coat with the mixture, put a lid on it and cook 8-11 hours on low or 5 to 7 on high (NOTE: I can't recommend enough using the low setting.) This will seem like you don't have enough liquid but trust me, you do.

When done, take pork out and let cool a bit then cut or shred (at this point, cutting was like cutting thru butter. It fell apart and was incredibly moist)

Tender. Moist. Pork. Goodness.

 There is a step about removing fat from liquid (let settle and skim fat off - if there is any) but there really wasn't any in this case. Toss the shredded pork in the braising liquid and squirt some fresh lime over it.

So we had a LOAD of meat. According to the book it keeps for 3 days (we cooked on Sunday and had the last of it on Thursday) sealed, in the fridge or up to 1 month in the freezer.

I decided to make pork tacos with a simple pineapple/onion/cilantro mix. I used canned pineapple because I had some in the pantry, and eyeballed the rest. A little bit of chopped onion, a pinch of fresh cilantro (note: do not ever use dried cilantro. ever.) Taste. Squeeze some lime, salt. Taste. Do this to your preference.

Add some queso blanco and you're golden. For our tacos we used flour tortillas and Chris did a quick fry on a skillet in evoo to give the tortilla some flavor.

Results are below.

DELICIOUS!

Fenway was too busy playing with her (3rd) birthday gift to pay much attention. Also I had the slow cooker on the porch so it didn't make the house smell like a restaurant. Sometimes that's a nice thing. Sometimes not.