Chileajo de Cerdo

A great deal of garlic going in raw and blended rather than fried, which is what the name is about.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains lard, pork.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg pork shoulder, in 4 cm chunks
• 2 whole heads of garlic, cloves peeled
• 6 guajillo chillies, stalks and seeds removed
• 3 ancho chillies, stalks and seeds removed
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 6 black peppercorns
• 4 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons lard
• 2 bay leaves
• corn tortillas, as on their own page, to serve

Method

1. THE GARLIC GOES IN RAW AND BLENDED, NOT FRIED, and there is a great deal of it -- two whole heads. That is what the name is about and it is the one decision that makes this dish itself. Garlic fried, roasted or charred goes sweet, mellow and nutty, which is what every other chilli sauce on this site wants from it. Here it goes into the blender raw with the soaked chillies and the vinegar, and it stays pungent and hot and slightly harsh. The long simmer takes the edge off without turning it into roast garlic, and what is left is a sauce that is unmistakably ABOUT garlic rather than seasoned with it.
2. TWO HEADS IS NOT A TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR. Somewhere around twenty cloves for six people. At four or five cloves this is a perfectly nice guajillo stew with no reason to exist beside the half-dozen others here.
3. THE VINEGAR IS PART OF THE STRUCTURE AND NOT A SEASONING. Four tablespoons, blended in with the garlic. Raw garlic and acid together are what the dish tastes of, and the vinegar also stops twenty cloves reading as simply aggressive. It is why chileajo keeps for the best part of a week.
4. THE PORK IS NOT BROWNED, WHICH IS UNUSUAL HERE. Browning would add the roasted, caramelised note the dish is specifically avoiding. The pork goes into the sauce raw and simmers in it, so everything in the pot stays on the sharp side of the line.
5. IT IS SIMMERED COVERED AND NOT REDUCED HARD. An hour and a half with the lid on. Reduced uncovered, the vinegar boils off and with it the balance, and the garlic has nothing holding it in check. The sauce should be loose enough to spoon and no thicker.
6. The chillies toasted on a dry pan 30 SECONDS a side, soaked in hot water 20 minutes and DRAINED, the water discarded.
7. The cumin and peppercorns toasted dry 30 seconds and ground with the oregano.
8. The soaked chillies blended with ALL the RAW peeled garlic, the ground spices, the vinegar, the salt and 200 ml of water, until smooth. Nothing fried, nothing charred.
9. STRAINED through a sieve into a heavy pot.
10. The lard stirred in and the sauce cooked 8 MINUTES over a medium heat, stirred, to take the rawest edge off.
11. The pork added RAW, with the bay leaves and 400 ml of water, and turned through the sauce.
12. Brought to a simmer, COVERED, and cooked 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES, stirred now and then.
13. TESTED: the pork should be tender enough to break with a spoon.
14. The bay removed. The sauce should be LOOSE enough to spoon -- a little water added if it has tightened.
15. Tasted: it should read sharply of garlic. Salted and served with tortillas. Keeps 5 days.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes