Barbacoa with Home Made Tortillas

It's time for Barbacoa! If you're not sure what this is, it's a Mexican dish that's really just very slowly cooked pork, beef, chicken or lamb. I really enjoy this particular rendition of Barbacoa which is loosely based on a recipe I found about a year ago with my own interpretation of ingredients and spices.

We'll also be going over how to make home made Tortillas. Brendan made them but they seemed surprisingly easy, especially compared to some of the other breads he's made.

Step 1: Ingredients

A 3 - 5 pounds pork roast
5 jalapenos
2 limes
1 bulb of garlic
Olive oil
Chicken broth/stock
Salt
2 teaspoons of Ground Cloves

Oregano
Cumin
Bay Leaves
Apple Cider Vinegar

Step 2: The easy way to peel garlic

So, you know how garlic can be a bit of a pain to peel? I friend linked a video to me a little more than a year ago of a way to peel garlic in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. All you have to do is break up the bulb of garlic and put it in a metal bowl or, if you're like me and don't have metal bowls, metal mixing cups. Cover your metal thing with another metal thing, so stack two metal bowls on top of each other with the rims facing or put another metal cup over your metal cup and shake the absolute crap out of it for 20 seconds.

Ta-da!

Go ahead and roughly chop your garlic and the jalapenos, seeds and all.

Step 3: Sear the meat

Heat a large pot or stock pot on medium high to high. You want it hot! Put your pork roast in and let it sear on that side for 2 minutes, then flip it and sear the other side for 3 minutes:

Step 4: Add Stuff

Pour in enough chicken stock to come halfway up the side of the pork roast, then add about a third of a cup of apple cider vinegar and turn your heat down to medium-low. Give it a healthy dusting of salt, cumin and oregano, then add 2 teaspoons of ground cloves.

Step 5: Flip it over and add more stuff

Flip the roast over so all of the spices are in the broth/stock, then toss in your diced jalapenos.

Step 6: Zest and Juice a lime

Grate all of the zest off of the lime and then juice it:

Cover the pot and let it sit on medium low for 4 hours.

Step 7: Break the meat up

After 4 hours, use a pasta grabber to break the meat apart until there are no more large chunks and then let it cook uncovered for another hour.

Now, during that hour, let's make Tortillas!

Step 1: Ingredients

4 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1.5 cups of water
6 tablespoons of olive oil

Step 2: Mix the dry ingredients

In a large mixing bowl, add the flour and salt and sift them together.

Step 3: Mix in the wet ingredients

Toss in the olive oil and then slowly, slowly mix in the water, constantly mixing and kneading with your free hand. If your dough starts to look too wet or sticky, stop adding water. Now, I know the recipe calls for 1.5 cups of water but if it's really humid, you may not need that much or if it's really dry, you may need more. You want the dough to be tacky but not sticky.

Step 4: Knead and Rest

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for about 10 minutes, then let it rest for 10 minutes.

Step 5: Cut it up

Section the dough off in to 16 pieces.

Step 6: Roll it out and cook it

Roll each piece of dough out until it's about 7" in diameter or until it's as thick or thin as you like your tortillas. Put a frying pan on the stove and turn the heat on medium. Let it get nice and warm before you toss the first tortilla in and let it cook for 1 minute per side.

and here we go, Barbacoa with home made Tortillas!