a colorful weekend... and bonus recipe

The vernal equinox passes, the weather heats up, and suddenly the city is full of color. With trips to Hashimoto Nursery to fill out the balcony garden, Sherwin Williams to get paint chips for the master bath, and Royce Hall to see Ira Glass, and with a second attempt at cooking the very green pork chile verde, our weekend was practically in technicolor.

Hashimoto Nursery

Sherwin Williams

UCLA Royce Hall

Pork chile verde

Here's how to make it...

Cut 2-3 pounds of washed tomatillos into chunks small enough to go into the food processor. Puree them, and pour the puree into a slow cooker.

Cut a 2-3 pound piece of pork butt (actually the pig's shoulder) into pieces somewhere in the vicinity of 1" cubes (does not have to be exact).

Boil the pork cubes in enough water to cover them until they stop producing foam. Skim off the foam as it forms, and when finished, strain the foam out of the stock. Add the pork to the tomatillo puree in the slow cooker, and reserve the stock.

While the pork is boiling, roast four poblano peppers over a gas flame until the skins are blistered and black (I like to do this one at a time with sturdy metal tongs... also good to shut off the smoke detector in advance).

 

Put the four roasted peppers in a paper bag, roll it closed, and let the peppers hang out for five to ten minutes.

In the meantime, saute a roughly diced medium brown or yellow onion and three chopped cloves of garlic in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Once they are translucent, add the mixture to the tomatillo puree.

Once the peppers are cool enough to handle (though still warm), clean off the char with hands under running water. Leave a little bit of char on for flavor.

Roughly chop up the washed peppers, leaving out the stem, seeds and pith. Add them to the tomatillo mixture. Stir in a few pinches of salt, 1 teaspoon of dried cumin and 1 teaspoon of dried oregano. Add enough of the reserved pork stock to give the mixture the consistency of a very chunky soup.

Cook covered until the mixture begins simmering, then uncovered for an additional 2-3 hours on high, or 4-6 hours on low, until the pork shreds easily with a fork.

Roughly chop the leafy portion of one bunch of cilantro, and stir it into the chile verde. Salt to taste. Serve with rice, beans, tortillas, bread, chips, or anything else you have handy.

 
Voila!