Puerco con Calabaza Afro-Veracruzano

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and tomatoes
• •Heavy 6-quart clay cazuela or Dutch oven
• •High-powered blender
• •Wooden spoon
• •Sharp knife for cutting squash

Instructions

1. 1

   Season the pork

   Pat the pork dry and season it with the kosher salt. Let it sit while you prepare the chiles and tomatoes. Dry meat browns. Wet meat boils in its own water and gives you a thin stew before you have even started.

2. 2

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the chile ancho and chile guajillo separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side, until the skins darken slightly and smell fruity. Do not let them blacken. Chile ancho gives the stew its raisin-dark sweetness. Guajillo gives clean red color. Burn them and the whole pot turns bitter.

   Use hot water for soaking, not boiling water. Boiling toughens the chile skin and drags bitterness into the sauce.
3. 3

   Soak the chiles

   Put the toasted chiles in a bowl and cover them with hot water. Let them soften for 20 minutes. Drain them, but save 1/2 cup of the soaking liquid in case the blender needs help. Taste that liquid first. If it tastes bitter, throw it away and use stock.

4. 4

   Char the tomatoes

   Set the Roma tomatoes on the hot comal and turn them until the skins blister and blacken in spots. The flesh should soften but not collapse into water. This is Veracruz, and tomato belongs in many of its stews, but it works as support. It does not replace the chile.

5. 5

   Blend the sauce

   Blend the soaked chiles, charred tomatoes, toasted cumin, black peppercorns, cinnamon, 1/2 cup peanuts, and 1 cup pork stock until very smooth. Blend longer than you think. Peanut left coarse turns sandy in the mouth, and a señora from the Sotavento would notice before you got the spoon to the table.

6. 6

   Brown the pork

   Melt the manteca de cerdo in a heavy cazuela or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the pork in batches, turning until the edges take on deep golden color. Do not crowd the pot. The browned bits at the bottom are part of the sauce. La manteca es el sabor, and here it carries the chile, the peanut, and the pork together.

7. 7

   Cook the aromatics

   Lower the heat to medium. Add the chopped onion to the same pot and cook until soft and lightly golden, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Scrape the bottom with a wooden spoon so the pork drippings loosen into the onion.

8. 8

   Fry the sauce

   Pour the blended chile-peanut sauce into the pot. It will sputter, so stand back and stir with purpose. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring often, until the sauce thickens, darkens, and the fat begins to show at the edges. This is the step that makes it a stew instead of boiled pork in red liquid. No me vengas con atajos.

9. 9

   Braise the pork

   Return the browned pork and its juices to the pot. Add the remaining 3 cups pork stock and bring to a gentle simmer. Cover partially and cook for 1 hour, stirring now and then, until the pork is beginning to soften but is not falling apart yet.

10. 10

    Add the calabaza

    Add the calabaza chunks and the epazote sprigs. If your squash is flat and not sweet, add the grated piloncillo now. Cover partially and simmer 30 to 40 minutes more, until the pork is tender and the calabaza is soft at the edges but still holds some shape. The squash should thicken the sauce naturally. If it disappears completely, you cut it too small.

11. 11

    Adjust the pot

    Taste for salt. Pull out the epazote stems and the cinnamon stick if you see it. If the sauce is too thick, loosen it with a splash of stock. If it is too thin, simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. The finished stew should be dense enough to sit over rice, glossy from the manteca, and sweet at the back of the spoon from the calabaza and peanut.

12. 12

    Serve Veracruz style

    Spoon the stew over plain white rice and scatter the remaining chopped roasted peanuts on top. Put warm corn tortillas on the table. Flour tortillas are a northern tradition; here they do not belong. Serve from the cazuela, family-style, with the sauce staining the rice red-brown. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Buy calabaza de Castilla when it is in season, usually fall into winter. The flesh should be dense, orange, and sweet. Kabocha is the best compromise outside Mexico because it holds its shape and has the right dry sweetness.
• •Use roasted unsalted peanuts. Salted snack peanuts bring stale oil and too much salt. Raw peanuts need to be toasted first on a comal until golden and fragrant.
• •Do not skip frying the blended sauce in manteca. The chile and peanut need that fat to bloom. If you pour the raw blend straight into broth, the stew will taste unfinished.
• •Epazote is not decoration. It cuts the heaviness of pork and peanut. If you cannot find it, leave it out and understand what you are missing. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •This is not a hot chile stew. The ancho and guajillo are about depth, color, and sweetness. Not all Mexican food is built to burn your mouth. This is a 32-state cuisine.

Advance Preparation

• •The chile-peanut sauce can be blended one day ahead and refrigerated. Fry it in manteca only when you are ready to cook the stew.
• •The finished stew tastes better after one night in the refrigerator. Reheat gently with a splash of stock or water because the peanut and squash will thicken as they rest.
• •Cut the calabaza the day you cook. Once cut, squash dries at the edges and loses the clean sweetness you want in the pot.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 525g)