Jun

Slow-cooked Pork Tacos à la Olla Podrida

Sean Sellers in White Wines, Albariño, Blow the Bank, Meat & Poultry 2006, food, Leftovers, Mexican Food, Oddbins, Recipe, Spain, Spanish Food

InterWined Food
Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

Just because UK food prices are their highest in more than a decade doesn’t mean that we can’t eat well. In fact, in some ways, it might mean just the opposite.

Here’s how: we all know that necessity is the mother of something, be it outright invention or the simple act of taking chances, as a quick search of Google will assure Mark Twain once apparently said; and when it comes to the kitchen that something is prized as culinary inspiration.

For most, if not all, of the world’s great culinary achievements – those techniques that transform ingredients into dishes that speak to our hearts as much as to our stomachs – were born of a necessary kind of culinary inspiration. From salting to smoking to pickling to stewing and offal to sausages to bean curd to…you get the picture…necessity has given us some of our most popular dishes and culinary techniques to help us see out the lean weeks and wait for the happy return of opulence and excess and imported non-seasonal fruits and vegetables.

So, in the spirit of the credit crunch, put down the ready-meal, unplug the microwave, and learn to re-embrace one-pot dinners and the hasty return of leftovers, as ‘Blow the Bank’ brings you its Slow-cooked Pork Tacos à la Olla Podrida.

And, sure it might cost more than a fiver (No offense Jamie; I’m sure shopping for spaghetti with you is very rewarding.), but it’ll definitely last a couple of meals.

Pork is a staple of the Spanish and Latin American diet, which dates back at least to the reconquista of Al-Andalus in 1492 — the year ol’ Cristóbal Colón went sailing to India and landed on the island of Hispaniola (the island divided by the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

The history of this dish isn’t that old, but it’s close. It even gets a mention in Don Quixote! (For the date junkies, we’re talking 1605.) In Spanish, the words Olla Podrida literally refer to a rotten pot of meat. But names can be deceiving — especially when it comes to foodstuffs — because this dish is anything but rotten.

Cooked in a large earthenware pot, the loin of pork is slow-cooked for a couple of hours in a mix of water, roughly chopped onions, cut bulbs of garlic, and a touch of salt and pepper. Later, the pork is removed and the remaining water and ingredients discarded. In the same pot, mustard seeds, paprika, and cumin are heated in olive oil with onion. The pork loin is shredded and returned to the pot, along with a simple vegetable or wine stock, followed by red kidney beans, cannellini beans, and calasparra rice. Once the stock has evaporated, the pot is removed from the heat, re-seasoned and served on warm corn tortillas to become Slow-cooked Pork Tacos à la Olla Podrida.

A bottle of the 2006 Val do Sosego Albariño (12.5%), from Rias Baixas in Spain, available at Oddbins for £8.49, makes a wondrous pairing to this white-meat stew, its mix of apples and pears complimenting the pork as well as the corn tortilla. Pork and apples, like apples and maize are excellent pairing partners; and although there is a tad more of a floral sense on the nose and woodiness in the mouth than I would have liked, it remains light and well-balanced with a crispness that helps further perpetuate the sense of apple. That gives it a score of 8.3, based on the complicated but 100%-accurate ratings system outlined on InterWined.com’s Ratings page. Thing is, it was so close to 8.6.

(As most readers will know, InterWined’s rating system is somewhat arbitrary and largely tongue-in-cheek.)

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Slow-cooked Pork Tacos à la Olla Podrida.

Ingredients:
500kg Pork loin
300g Red kidney beans (or 1 tin)
300g Cannellini beans (or 1 tin)
2 Garlic bulbs, halved horizontally
2 Onions, halved
1 Chopped onion
½ cup Calasparra rice (or equivalent)
500ml Vegetable stock or white wine
3 tbsp Mustard Seeds
3 tsp Paprika
3 tsp cumin
Salt
Ground pepper
Olive Oil
Corn Tortillas

Preparation:

1. In a large earthenware pot, filled three-fifths to three-quarters full of nearly boiling water, add the pork loin, halved onions, and garlic
2. Cover with a lid and cook on a high heat for approximately 2 hours or until you can slip a knife into the pork loin without any resistance
3. Once cooked, remove the pork loin and garlic from the pot and reserve
4. Drain the pot and discard the onions
5. Salvage as much of the garlic from the bulbs as possible, before discarding
6. Shred the pork loin and mix it the cooked garlic
7. Quickly rinse and dry the pot, before returning it to the hob on a medium heat
8. Add the mustard seeds, paprika, and cumin and ground pepper to the pot, stir vigorously before adding approximately 2 tbsp of olive oil
9. Add the chopped onion and cook for one-to-two minutes, before adding the pork and garlic to the pot
10. Stir the pot and coat the pork in the spices, before adding the beans, rice, and stock or white wine
11. Cover with the lid and cook for approximately 20 minutes or until the stock evaporates
12. Remove the hob, mix thoroughly, and serve with warn corn tortillas

Leave any leftovers to cool, before covering and placing in the refrigerator. For a second meal, spread the congealed olla podrida on toasted bread and serve with slices of sweet & sour pickled gherkins.

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Tasting Notes