Tacos al David

Ingredients For the Pork:

• 2 whole ancho chilies, seeds and stems removed
• 2 whole pasilla or guajillo chilies, seeds and stems removed
• 1/2 cup homemade or store-bought low-sodium chicken stock
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried ground cumin seed
• 1 tablespoon achiote powder or paste
• 1 chipotle chili packed in adobo sauce + 2 tsps sauce from can
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 3 whole cloves garlic
• 2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 large onion, sliced into thin arcs and caramelized in pork fat
• 3 pounds boneless pork shoulder, dry brined for 24 hours with salt and chili powder into sliceable roast

To Finish and Serve:

• 1 small pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into quarters lengthwise
• 32 to 48 corn tortillas, heated and kept warm
• 1 medium white onion, finely diced (about 1 cup)
• 1/2 cup finely minced fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems
• 1 cup fresh tomato salsa picante style (no vinegar – add fresh lime juice and pineapple juice)
• 3 to 4 limes, cut into 8 wedges each for serving
• 1 to 2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced into quarter rounds

Directions

1. Place chilies in a large saucepan over medium high heat and cook, turning chilies occasionally, until puffed, pliable, lightly browned in spots, and very aromatic, about 5 minutes. Add chicken stock (it should boil immediately), then pour contents of pan into a small bowl. Cover loosely and set aside.
2. Wipe out saucepan, add oil, and return to medium-high heat until oil is shimmering. Add cumin, oregano, and achiote and cook, stirring frequently, until aromatic but not browned, about 30 seconds. Add chipotle chilies and sauce and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds longer. Add vinegar, salt, and sugar and remove from heat.
3. Scrape contents of saucepan into a blender along with garlic and chilies with their soaking liquid. Blend on high speed until completely smooth, about 1 minute, scraping down sides as necessary. Set sauce aside to cool slightly.
4. Using a very sharp chef’s knife or slicing knife, slice the meat as thin as possible. If necessary, place meat in freezer for 15 minutes to firm it up. Transfer to a large bowl. Repeat with remaining meat.
5. Add marinade to bowl and toss with hands until every piece of meat is evenly coated in marinade.
6. Line the bottom of a bread loaf pan with bacon (if using sirloin). Add a layer of thin sliced marinated meat. Continue layering in bacon and meat until all the meat is used up or if using pork shoulder just pile it in (may be above the pan a little bit). Place filled loaf pan in vacuum sealing bag with enough extra length to reseal after cutting open later, then seal and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to 36.  Meat should fuse together slightly.
7. Preheat sous vide bath to 155°F and place vacuum sealed loaf pan in the bath for at least 24 hours or until meat is completely tender (it will render lots of fat and collagen into the bag).  Open bag and remove loaf pan, reserving all juices in the bag for now.  Remove meat loaf from pan and pour juices from bag into a tall container.  Carefully place al pastor meat loaf back into the plastic bag with a folded paper towel inside just below the sealing strip to catch extra liquids during the sealing.  Vacuum seal to compress loaf and refrigerate both loaf and juices for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.
8. To Serve: Preheat oven to 350°F. Using a sharp chef’s knife or meat slicer, slice meat as thinly as possible to create fine shavings. Transfer to a bowl.
9. Separate solid fat from gelatin and heat fat gently in the microwave or in the oven until melted. Transfer pineapple pieces to a rimmed baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Brush with fat. Transfer to oven and roast until completely tender, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.
10. Simmer and reduce the meat gelatin and juices in a pan along with half the drained and squeezed juice from a can of crushed pineapple until it forms a thick caramelized glaze. 
11. Mix crushed pineapple with freshly made picante style salsa (tomatoes, onions, banana peppers, seeded jalapeños, cilantro) and dress with lime juice and salt to taste.
12. Use some of the melted fat to caramelize the onions slowly in a skillet while the glaze is cooking down.
13. Mix remaining melted fat back in with the meat into a shallow pan so it is in a single layer and sprinkle half of the meat lightly on top with pineapple juice.  Blow torch the entire tray with a propane weed flame thrower until the plain meat side is slightly charred and the pineapple infused meat is caramelized.  Alternately, put the pan under a broiler for a few minutes at maximum heat. 
14. Just before pineapple is done roasting, add glaze and caramelized onions to the crispy meat and toss to combine until well coated. Transfer meat to a warmed serving bowl.
15. Chop roasted pineapple into large chunks. Serve meat and pineapple immediately with warmed tortillas, onions, cilantro, salsa, lime wedges and diced cucumber. Meat will be very moist and should be packed into double stacked tortillas for serving.

There were several weaknesses that I noted in this recipe/process.  While using sous vide for slow cooking the meat initially is a genius improvement in the process vs. roasting in the oven for conserving juiciness, it led to some weakness in the finishing process that can be turned into an advantage next go around.

Most importantly, the char level on the meat was not optimal!  The following steps were perfectly executed to their intention:

1. Removing rendered juices from the sous vide bag after cooking and chilling to separate the fat from the collagen rich juice
2. Resealing and cooling the loaf separately to complete the process of allowing the salt to cross-link the myofibrillar proteins, mainly myosin, under vacuum pressure

However, some problems arose when trying to finish out the meat:

1. In my well-intentioned attempt to get browning on the meat in the pan – I had to cook it WAY too long on very high heat — and still only achieved minimal browning!  This tends to dry out and toughen the meat in the process. 
2. When I attempted to reintroduce the collagen rich juices to offset the drying, this became a catch 22, as the more juice I added back – the less browning I was able to achieve in the meat!  In fact, I only got about half of the juice added back to the pan and reduced before giving up — realizing that the meat was probably already overcooked.
3. In a similar problem to #2, there was no easy way to baste the meat with the reserved pineapple juice and get this to caramelize in the pan without further overcooking the meat.  This prevented me from attaining many of the unique flavors you want from the Maillard reactions with the sugar in the pineapple juice.  What a loss!  And without introducing enough of the pineapple juice – the remaining glaze on the meat was less sweet and complex. 

Yes, it was tasty enough from the achiote-chili-spice marinade – but not authentic.  The meat sliced from the trompo is basted while turning and roasted under high direct heat.  This allows the char and caramelization on the outside layer of the trompo and the juice evaporates to a nice thick glaze on the thin slices while the inside is protected and slow roasting and excess juice drains away from the trompo (instead of building up in the pan).

So, what is the solution to these problems?  Well, maybe a blowtorch IS the answer! 

Remember, the meat is already cooked to perfection from the slow roasting in the sous vide.  So all we need to do here is heat it slightly while adding the char and caramelization.  There is no better way to do this to a large amount of meat all at once than with the super high and fast heat from the blowtorch!   

Sliced right from the loaf and still chilled – place the meat in a single thin layer in a metal warming pan. Add a bit of the chilled pineapple juice and mix to break up the meat into pieces and coat.  Then blast away just until you achieve the perfect char and caramelization you want.  In fact – if you want to make sure that you get both happening – you can char half the meat without the pineapple juice and half with the juice, then remix afterwards.  That way, you aren’t adding liquid that can lengthen the time required to brown the meat (time + heat = dry + tough at this stage).

The second solution is to add some pineapple juice directly to the collagen rich juice and reduce this to a thick glaze in a separate pan (not with the meat).  You can play with the heat level, time and the amount of added pineapple juice to achieve the right thickness and flavor for this glaze.  It then gets added back to the meat after the blow torch and mixed to coat evenly.

After deboning, you can also dry brine the pork shoulder in an appropriately salty rub before slicing and marinating.  This allows you to shape the meat into a more sliceable form, adds some flavor and allows the salt to penetrate the meat more deeply – flavoring and starting to dissolve the myosin that helps with the cross-linking of the raw meat loaf in later steps. 

It is possible to take this even one step further and “corn” the pork like you would corned beef for several days.  This may add complexity and a truly unique flavor profile to the meat that would really help it to stand out, but it would move away from authenticity.  So that is for another day – making too many changes all at once often is counter productive and you don’t know what worked and what didn’t to achieve the level of perfection you are seeking.