Today I made tacos al pastor for dinner, and they were spectacular. Al pastor, of course, is the mouth-watering chile-braised pork found in many taquerias. It had never occurred to me that it could be prepared at home, but when I saw the recipe for Spicy Pork Tacos in the Cook’s Illustrated Summer Grilling magazine, I knew what I had to do. It had also never occurred to me to wonder what al pastor actually means, but thanks to the recipe I now know it’s shepherd-style.
It’s an ambitious recipe, so first things first. The wife took the boys out of the house so I could focus on the task at hand. I started by cleaning up from breakfast, and laying out ingredients so I had room to work.
Then of course, I made a margarita. I make mine with Hornitos Tequila, Triple Sec, juice from half a lime, and a splash of Mezcal for smokiness. Now I was ready to cook!
The recipe’s instructions are pretty involved but straightforward. I did my thing, chopping, peeling, etc. Pretty soon I was adding items to the Dutch oven. The colors of the chiles, tomatoes, bay leaves and garlic looked great together, almost like a delicious Mexican flag in a pot.
Fast forward several hours and the pork was simmering away, smothered in the now-blended ingredients.
The end result was seriously some of the best food I’ve ever prepared. Smoky and spicy, with a nice hit of sweet from some fresh grilled pineapple. This was the real deal.
As good as it was, there was room for improvement. One issue I had was that some of the pork broke down so much while simmering that it lost its integrity on the grill, and slipped through the cracks. Meanwhile I removed some of the remaining pork from the grill too early, because I was afraid of losing even more to the cracks. So some of the meat could have used more time on the grill to char up.
Overall though the flavor was pretty awesome, and next time I have an entire day to hang out drinking margaritas I will be making it again.
