Taco Time

Tacos have been a long time favorite, ever since my first hard shell from an Ortega taco kit somewhere circa '94 (it was a good year for music, too). For a long time I didn't know the expansiveness of the taco game, a game which I fall happily into on a repeated basis. I relied heavily on the idea that a taco consisted of ground beef, seasoned with a salty/spicy mixture, then covered in lettuce, tomato,  cheese, and some hot sauce from a jar (or packet if you're really cheap). Nested between a hard shell corn tortilla and I was hooked. Something about the refrigerated hot sauce and warm ground beef combo sucked me in, and I proceeded to far exceed the suggested serving size of tacos per human.

Since progressing past Ortega taco kits, the alluring part has been the endless possibilities of items you can put between a tortilla. Different meats, salsas, vegetables, hot sauces, cheeses, potatoes, eggs. The list never ends, and why should it? You can make a taco out of just about anything. A proper taco allows you to taste all these components both on their own and in conjuction with each other. I've searched far and wide in my travels to find the best taco, and while I can't say I have a definitive answer, I've learned a thing or two about what makes one good, and what makes one just ok. It's always fun when you can play off your glutinous eating habits by saying it's for research purposes, so do it when you can. I can't really remember ever having a horrible taco. I'm sure I have at some 3am food desperation, but I guess the good ones have far outweighed the bad in my taco remembering cortex.

This "recipe" is kind of a collection of recipes/ideas for you, taco lover. It starts with a meat that during my relatively young taco eating career I have decided is the ultimate flavor delivery vehicle. That item would be pork, or in this case, CARNITAS. Carnitas offer the best of both worlds: slowly roasting pork followed by frying it in its own fat. Just think about that for a second without drooling.

I topped off these tacos with black beans, cheese, fresh salsas, pickled onions and kimchi, but you can try anything.

What you will need:

- 1 3-5 lb. pork butt, depending on how many heads you got to feed. Or if you just want leftovers go big. The recipe here was used on a 3 lb. piece
- 1 bottle of beer
- Salt & Pepper
- 2 Tbsp. Sugar
- 3 or 4 dried chilis, ancho or guajillo
- 2 Limes
- 1 Orange
- 2 Tbsp. Mexican Oregano
- 1 Tbsp. Cumin
- 1 or 2 Tbsp. chili powder
- 1 Bay Leaf (used to never waste my time with these, but just buy a bunch you'll be surprised how many things you can use them in)


Marinate
1. Boil some hot water and put in your dried chilis. There's really no limit here for how many you use, but I think a few should do. You can try different ones you can find, I used mainly guajillo and ancho here. Ancho are smoky, guajillo a little more sweet. Simmer for about 20 mins just to bring them back to life before shredding away in your food processor. Add to your food processor, along with lime juice, sugar, fresh squeezed orange juice, and some of the remaining water from boiling the chiles. You want this to be somewhat paste like, so don't use too much water.

2. Saute onions and garlic in the pot that you will be cooking your pork in, something with a heavy bottom is best. Add in your mexican oregano, cumin, bay leaf, and chili powder. Add in a bottle of beer, something like a Pacifico or Modelo. Let this simmer and place your marinaded pork in the pot. Cover and find something to keep you occupied for a few hours so you are not tempted to remove the pork too early. Your patience will be rewarded.

3. Once the pork is done (approx 3 hours for a 3 lb piece of pork), you want to let it chill for a few minutes with no heat. Once it starts to cool you can shred it and remove it from the pot. In theory you are done, but there's one final step that takes these tacos to another level. Heat up the liquid that the pork was cooking in and mix it in with your shredded pork. It's a little messy, but you don't want to lose all that flavor (aka fat). Then heat up a frying pan to hot and throw batches of your pork on. In just a minute or two it will blacken and crisp up the pork, and who doesn't like crispy pork?

The final steps are completely up to you. It's your taco, do what you please. Everyone likes different things on their tacos, so go wild. For these I went with homemade pickled onions and fresh salsa verde. The recipe I used for salsa can be found here:
http://gdonheiser.blogspot.com/2013/11/green-salsas-are-salsas-too-ok.html