First off, the hugest news of the day is Lovie Smith is getting canned by Phil Emery.
This is pretty good as far as timing goes since the Bears can hopefully be close to the front of the line for new head coaches and...it's a whole new start.
Who wouldn't want to come to Chicago and bring our poor city a Superbowl Championship?
Next...
Okay.
Say "chili".
Kinda boring, right?
You've heard it a million times in your life, like "salt" or "Yankees win the World Series".
Now say "Pork Tinga".
Let the "i" stretch out like "TEEEEEEEnga".
Brother, that is just plain fun to say, and when you try it you'll go oh my god I need a beer and a tv with football.
I can't remember where I first saw it, maybe a food section or something, but it was a Rick Bayless recipe and he's the Frontera Grill guy and I've never had anything from there that wasn't amazing.
And, Pork Tinga is also really really easy to make.
Here's the slow cooker recipe off Bayless' Frontera site.
Here's a quicker recipe from him as well off Food and Wine.
Or you can just read the rest of this post (I messed with it a little by upping the good parts and making this enough for probably 8-10 servings).
Here's the stuff you need:
Your biggest cast iron frying pan and the same pot you use to make spaghetti sauce.
About a 2.5 lb. boneless pork shoulder cut into 1 1/2" cubes. Try to find a lean one, but if there's a little fat on there, well, that's flavor.
A quarter teaspoon of dried marjoram and the same of dried thyme.
3 bay leaves.
A pound of potatoes scrubbed with the skin on and chopped into quarter inch bits.
About a half pound of fresh (as in uncooked) chorizo with the casing removed.
A big onion - Spanish or yellow or whatever - chopped.
Couple cloves of garlic, minced.
The big 28 oz can of stewed or peeled Italian tomatoes, drained and chopped.
A dash of sugar to knock the tomato down a notch.
And get 2 of those little 7 oz cans of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. You'll only use 4 of the peppers, but you'll need 6-8 teaspoons of the adobo sauce the chilis are marinating in.
Chop the peppers up and you can take the seeds out but why?
And in the end you'll chop up a couple avocados and perhaps some grated cheese to put on top, and a big stack of those smallish tortillas.
Okay, put the pork in a pot of 5 cups of water with the marjoram and thyme and bay leaves, bring it to a boil, then turn it down and let it simmer for 45 minutes. Then take the pork out with a slotted spoon and put it on a plate to cool. Skim fat off the broth and save a couple cups.
In the giant frying pan, heat the oil and cook the chorizo. It'll be a weird consistency, so just keep chopping it with your spatula and try to make little bits out sausage out of it, and after about 10 minutes pull it out of the pan.
See that deep red juice? Good stuff.
Now put the onion and pork in the pan and cook that for 10.
Since nobody likes to clean dishes, instead of boiling the spuds just put the pile of chopped pieces on a paper plate and microblast for 2-3 minutes on high.
Then add pretty much everything to the pork and onions - garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, chorizo, chopped chipotles and the adobo sauce - and cook for another 5 or so.
Your house should smell amazing.
Then add the 2 cups of reserved broth and let that simmer for 10 and you're just about ready to go.
That shoulda been about an hour and a half, but you were next to the fridge which had the cold ones in it, right?
Chop up the avocados and heat up the tortillas and yell out "PORK TEEEEENGA".
People will come.
Grab a bowl and a beer (get Tecate - they have awesome retro cans currently from the 60's).
It's time to watch some football.
I'll see you guys next year, and it'll be time to start talking about baseball again.
Oh, here's what it really looks like, that Tinga.
