PORK TINGA

February's issue of Food and Wine magazine contained a recipe from Rick Bayless for this marvelous dish.  I never heard of it before.  It is sort of like our Southern pulled pork, but with a tomato-chipotle sauce that also includes Chorizo.  Rick Uses pork shoulder in his recipe, but we St Louisans love our "pork steak"-a shoulder steak cut that includes the bone and is not seen in alot of other places. 

I served the steaks with grilled tortillas and chopped avocado, sliced onion, tomato, and cilantro.


My recipe calls for 4 eight ounce pork steaks, Rick's calls for 1 1/2 pounds cubed pork shoulder, and I changed some of his instructions and ingredients, but for the most part I followed his lovely recipe-it can be found online or in the magazine, or you can just use my recipe-it tunred out so wonderful that I'm going to approach my bosses about putting it on our special events menus.  It would be a beautiful party buffet entree with all the colorful garnishes.

4 eight ounce pork steaks-alternatively 1 1/2# cubed pork shoulder
1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano (My addition, not in Ricks original recipe)
3 bay leaves
3/4 # fingerling potatoes-Rick used quartered red potatoes
2 tablespoons oil
1 large fresh chorizo
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
one 28-ounce can peeled Italian tomatoes-I accidentally picked up puree
2 chipotles chiles in adobo, minced plus 4 tablespoons adobo
Salt, pepper, and sugar to taste

Brown the steaks in a large skillet with a tight fitting lid.  Add the chorizo and brown.

Add onions and cook 1 minute, add the garlic, add the herbs and potatoes, add the tomatoes, adobo, and chipotle.  Bring the mixture to the boil and reduce the flame to barely a simmer, cover and simmer the stew for two hours until the meat is falling off the bones.

The sauce was gettting a bit too thick, so I added some chicken stock while the steaks were cooking in order to get the correct sauce consistency.

serve with tortillas and the garnishes.