Pork Chipotle Tostadas
Aren’t Tostadas such a pretty food? With fresh and colorful combinations you can pick and choose whatever your heart desires, though on today’s meat pick, these Pork Chipotle Tostadas are positively delish!
Today’s recipe ingredients were all rounded up at Cardenas, a popular Latino Market in Las Vegas which freshly prepares its tostada shells and assorted tortillas at the back side of the store, and if you time it right they are still nice and hot packaged into designated serving bags.
The fresh pork somewhat resembled country ribs cut into one third size pieces though with small bone still attached. The package written in Spanish indicated pork with bone-in. You could alternatively use a bone-in pork loin end roast, a pork butt, or pork shoulder roast then cut into three to four inch pieces braising with chipotle flavored ingredients until tender.
The tostadas are quick and easy to assemble if you prepare the pork one day in advance which is what I did also allowing the flavors to fully develop and upon reheating enabling the sauce to thicken up before a final tossing with cut up or shredded pork at serving time. Pasar Bien!
Pork Chipotle Tostadas
Ingredients
- For the Pork:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 pounds pork pieces with bones on
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- a few shakes garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 6 canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (small cans may be found in the Hispanic aisles at supermarkets)
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 1/2 cups chicken stock, enough to just barely cover the pork or a little less
- few good pinches coarse kosher salt, plus more according to taste
- few grinds cracked black pepper, more to taste
- For the Tostadas Assembly:
- 1-2 tostadas per person
- Warm pork pieces in thickened chipotle sauce
- Any choice of accompaniments such as: heated refried beans, chopped tomatoes, thinly sliced red cabbage, fresh cilantro leaves, crumbled cotija cheese, sliced avocado, fresh tomatillo salsa, fresh lime wedges
Instructions
- Heat a shallow, narrow edged lidded saute pan or braiser on low heat
- Add in the olive oil. swirl to cover the bottom of the pan
- Using paper toweling lightly pat dry the pork pieces then set into the pan, increasing the temperature to medium high
- Brown pork to golden brown, around five minutes, turn over pork pieces
- Continue cooking another few minutes, tumble in the onions, stir, cook around five minutes until onions are soft and translucent
- Sprinkle in the garlic powder, cumin and coriander, stir, cook one minute
- Spoon in the chipotle peppers along with sauce using a wooden spoon to break up the peppers, stir through, cook another minute
- Drop in bay leaf
- Pour in the chicken stock, stir, and heat until stock is very hot then reduce the heat to a very low simmer and cook pork around two hours or longer, stirring intermittently until pork is fork tender
- Add in the salt and pepper, stir, check seasoning, adjusting salt to taste
- Let pork cool in sauce then refrigerate covered overnight
- Before serving, heat pork on low temperature in a covered pan, once hot, remove the pork pieces, continuing to heat sauce to thicken
- Shred or cut pork into small bites then return meat back to the reduced, thickened sauce and stir throughout
- Transfer Pork in Chipotle to a serving platter alongside tostada shells and assorted accompaniments for diners to build their Tostadas according to their ingredient preference delights
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