Carnitas

Super easy carnitas, delicious on a taco.

Buy a couple pounds of pork shoulder/butt, cut into hunks. Add to a dutch oven or some other heavy, large pot. Add a roughly chopped onion, some garlic, a couple bay leafs, and some salt. Cover with water. I used half a can of Coke for sweetness (believe it or not, it works, and is something widely done in Southern California carnitas joints). Orange juice would work as well, has roughly the same acidity/sweetness profile as Coke.

Simmer for a couple hours, let the liquid evaporate until the fat is left, then fry the pork in its fat until you get some browning. Voila, easy as hell carnitas. Make it a taco with some lime, cilantro, onion, maybe some avocado and some chopped Fresno peppers.

Chipotle picadillo

For Cinco de Mayo, I made a picadillo featuring ground pork and chipotle peppers. Turned out well, but on the second go-round I learned from my initial try and rocked it. Picadillo means "mince" and so I liberally use it to describe my minced-ground pork dish here - typical picadillo's you'll find in Mexico won't resemble this. They might not be as tasty either.

In some olive oil, I sauteed some onions and then garlic. Then goes in the ground pork, turned over till browned. Then add in tomatoes, chopped chipotle peppers and their canning sauce (assuming you go canned chipotle, hard to find otherwise), along with salt and black pepper. I added some chopped serrano chile for good measure - nice heat kick. Chipotles are hot enough for most people. Cover all this with water. Simmer for a half hour roughly.

Here comes the good part: remove the meat, and then boil down the remaining sauce until most of the water has evaporated. At this point, you'll be left with mostly liquid fat and sauce. What's left should be sweet, tangy, spicy. Return the meat to the pot, coat with the reduction, and serve. Pictured below in a burrito.

Birria

I love birria, and of course being something that's actually Mexican, you can't get it at the Mexican restaurants in my area. I did have a good birria taco at a place in Jamaica Plains, Boston, but that's been it. So I turned to Rick Bayless and followed his recipe, using a lamb leg. Flavor turned out an A, the meat itself ended up a bit dry - next time I'll use a fattier piece of meat. I marinated the lamb overnight in a chile guajillo sauce, then steamed it in the oven for 3 hours the next day. Made delicious, rich tacos.

Salsa fresca

Making good salsa is so easy that it surprises me when I come across bad stuff. The longer I've lived in New England the less surprised I have been on successive occasions, but with that said, there is still no reason to make bad salsa - anywhere! These ingredients can be purchased in most places of the world.

A simple recipe like this + a blender = tasty. People like Rick Bayless will rightly tell you that using a blender makes a frothy salsa, but the froth (air bubbles) dissipate after a couple hours, and you want to let your salsa marinate and marry for a few hours before eating it anyway.

1 28 oz can of plum tomatoes
2/3 medium white onion
cilantro, handful or so
9 serrano peppers (this make it medium-hot, adjust to your taste)
2 garlic cloves
Juice of one lime
pinch of salt

Combine, blend, enjoy. Below is this salsa accompanying huevos rancheros.