Tacos Árabes Poblanos

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Sharp chef's knife and a sturdy cutting board for chopping the pork
• •Heavy cast iron skillet or plancha for searing the meat
• •Large cast iron comal for the pan árabe and for charring the salsa ingredients
• •Rolling pin for the flatbread
• •High-powered blender for the marinade and salsa

Instructions

1. 1

   Marinate the pork

   In a blender, combine the six garlic cloves, oregano, cumin, black pepper, two teaspoons salt, vinegar, two tablespoons olive oil, crumbled bay leaf, and half of the white onion. Blend until smooth. Lay the pork steaks in a glass dish and pour the marinade over them, turning each one to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least six hours, better overnight. This is not al pastor. There is no achiote. There is no pineapple. The Lebanese cooks who brought this dish to Puebla in the 1930s used oregano and vinegar, and that is what we use now.

   Ask your butcher to slice the pork shoulder for you on the deli slicer. Thin even steaks cook through and crisp at the edges. Hand-cut chunks will steam before they brown.
2. 2

   Make the pan árabe dough

   In a large bowl, whisk the flour, one and a half teaspoons salt, and sugar. Make a well in the center. Add the warm water, three tablespoons olive oil, and the egg. Mix with your hand until a shaggy dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for ten minutes, until smooth and elastic. The dough should be soft but not sticky. Rub a little olive oil over it, return to the bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and let it rest for one hour at room temperature. This is not a tortilla. This is the cousin of khubz, the flatbread the Lebanese immigrants brought with them when they settled in the city of Puebla.

3. 3

   Toast and soak the salsa chiles

   Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Toast the morita chiles for about twenty seconds per side. They puff and turn fragrant. The morita is what gives this salsa its smoke. The morita is a red jalapeño that has been smoked over wood and dried, and it is the single ingredient that defines salsa para tacos árabes. Do the same with the guajillo. Place all the toasted chiles in a bowl, cover with hot tap water, and soak for fifteen minutes.

   If your morita is black instead of dark red-brown, it is burned. Toss it and try another. Burned chile turns the salsa bitter, and bitter chipotle is a salsa nobody wants.
4. 4

   Char the tomatoes, garlic, and onion

   While the chiles soak, return the comal to medium-high heat. Char the Roma tomatoes, unpeeled garlic, and onion quarter directly on the dry surface, turning until they are blistered and blackened in patches. The tomatoes should collapse a little. The garlic should soften inside its papery skin. This is ten minutes of work and it builds the foundation of the salsa.

5. 5

   Blend the chipotle salsa

   Drain the soaked chiles. Peel the charred garlic. Combine the chiles, tomatoes, garlic, onion, salt, vinegar, and half a cup of the chile soaking liquid in a blender. Blend until smooth but not perfectly silky. You want a salsa with body. Taste for salt. The salsa should be smoky, deep red-brown, slightly tangy, and hot but not punishing. This is the salsa for tacos árabes. No me vengas con atajos and no me vengas with bottled chipotle sauce.

   The salsa thickens as it sits. If it tightens up overnight, loosen it with a tablespoon of warm water before serving.
6. 6

   Shape the pan árabe

   Divide the rested dough into six to eight equal balls, each about the size of a large lime. On a lightly floured surface, roll each ball into a round about eight inches across and a quarter inch thick. Thicker than a tortilla, thinner than a pita. Let the rolled rounds rest under a cloth for ten minutes while you heat the comal. Resting relaxes the gluten so the bread will not shrink back when it hits the heat.

7. 7

   Cook the pan árabe

   Heat a dry comal or large skillet over medium-high. Lay one round of dough onto the hot surface. Cook for about a minute, until the underside has light brown spots and small bubbles rise across the top. Flip and cook the second side for another minute. The bread should be soft and pliable, with a few golden blisters but no crisp char. Stack them on a clean cloth and keep them covered while you cook the rest. A pan árabe that has gone hard cannot wrap a taco.

8. 8

   Sear the pork

   Heat a heavy cast iron skillet or plancha over medium-high until very hot. Add the lard. When it shimmers, lay the marinated pork steaks in a single layer. Do not crowd the pan. Work in batches. Sear for two to three minutes per side, until the edges are dark mahogany and the surface has caught some color. The high heat is doing what a vertical trompo would do: caramelizing the marinade onto the meat. La manteca es el sabor. Transfer the cooked pork to a cutting board.

   Slice the remaining half onion into thin half-moons and throw them into the pan with the last batch of pork. They soften in the rendered fat and go into the taco with the meat.
9. 9

   Chop and assemble

   Stack the seared pork steaks and chop them coarsely with a sharp knife. You want pieces with edges, not a fine mince. Mound a generous portion of pork down the center of a warm pan árabe. Add a spoonful of the cooked onion. Roll the bread tightly around the filling, the way the cooks at La Oriental and Tacos Bagdad do it in the centro of Puebla. The pan árabe folds, it does not break. Serve immediately with the chipotle salsa on the side, a few lime wedges, and chopped parsley if you want it. The parsley is a Lebanese hand still on the dish. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •If you cannot find chile chipotle morita, the smaller darker red chipotle, use chile chipotle meco, the larger tan one. The morita is smokier and slightly fruitier, the meco is more wood-smoke and earthy. They are not identical, but either makes a real salsa. Canned chipotles in adobo are a compromise, not an upgrade, and they bring sweetness and tomato that do not belong here.
• •Pan árabe freezes well. Make a double batch of the bread, cook them all, and freeze the extras flat in a zip-top bag with parchment between each one. Reheat on a dry comal for thirty seconds per side. The dough takes ten minutes to make and an hour to rest, so you may as well make twice as many while you are at it.
• •If you want to cook this the way the trompo does, marinate the pork as instructed, then thread the steaks onto a metal skewer in a tight stack, top with a quarter onion as a cap, and roast vertically in a hot oven on a sheet pan at 425F for about forty minutes, shaving thin slices off the outside as it cooks. This is the home version of the trompo and it is closer to the original than the skillet method.

Advance Preparation

• •The pork marinates overnight. Plan for it. A two-hour marinade will not give you the same depth.
• •The chipotle salsa can be made up to four days ahead and refrigerated. The flavor settles and improves on day two.
• •Pan árabe can be made the same day or frozen ahead. Reheat on a dry comal. Do not microwave the bread or it will turn rubbery and tear when you roll the taco.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 290g)