Sour Orange Pork

Last summer when we were in the Merida we once again had occasion to sample the Mayan dish, cochinita pibil (baby pig buried). One of the keys in preparation of this dish is to marinate the pork in bitter or sour orange juice. This high acid content juice helps tenderize the pork and gives it a tangy flavor that we really like.

Last week we bought a pork loin (lomo de cerdo). There are a number of sour orange trees around our house and no one seems to use the fruit. They just fall off the trees. So I gathered four of them and juiced them for a pork marinade. 

Here's how it was prepared:

First, open up the loin with a filleting knife (butterfly) so it is long and much thinner.

 

Then put the 'fillet" in the sour orange juice in the fridge to marinate for most of the day. In the marinade was the juice, a couple of chopped up garlic cloves, about a teaspoon ground cumin (comino molinio) and a teaspoon of Salsa Inglesa or Worcestershire (these are a bit different and I didn't properly note which was used, but I think either would do). Also, put in a big squirt of Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce.

When you take the pork out of the marinade, put the 'fillet' out full length on a cutting board and spread a mixture of chopped dried prunes, sun dried tomatoes and raisins across it. Then roll up the pork and tie it with cotton string to hold it all together. Put salt and pepper and a little more ground cumin on the outside of the 'roll' and brown it in olive oil in a good sized frying pan.

Put the marinade in the pan and covered it to cook. After 15 minutes the marinade will be near cooked down, so add a bottle light beer (I used a Corona) and cook it another 30 minutes.  Then take the pork out of the pan and put it on a platter to cool down. Make a sauce with the pan drippings and pour it over the pork and serve.

I thought this dish tasted very good, but it was a little dry. This cut of pork has no fat - especially here in Mexico. I froze half of the pork and when we ate the second half I made a sauce of chopped prunes and raisins, a little balsamic vinegar and some honey. I cooked it down and thickened it with a little flour. This was a good addition to help with the dryness and added a little more of the sweet and sour flavor.

Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Spinach and Sun Dried Tomatoes

This recipe is a variation of Gaida De Laurentis’ sun dried tomato stuffed pork chops. I make a bunch at a time then wrap them in stretchy plastic and freeze a bag full. We just pop a couple out and defrost for a quick meal.

Ingredients

• 6    boneless chicken breast halves
• 2    cloves garlic, chopped
• 1    package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• ¼ cup chopped sun dried tomatoes
• ¼  cup crumbled feta cheese or crumbly goats cheese
• ¼ cup of cream cheese
• 1  lemon for juice and slices  for garnish
• ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
• ¼ teaspoon fresh rosemary
•     Salt and pepper as desired

Directions

Warm the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme. Cook until combined, about 2 more minutes. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl. Add the feta or goat cheese and the cream cheese. Stir to combine and put in fridge to chill.

Use a sharp knife to carefully cut a pocket into the thickest portion of the chicken breast halves. Stuff each pocket with 1/6th of the spinach, cheese and sun-dried tomato mixture. Close the chicken breast around the stuffing. Season the outside of the chicken breast with salt and pepper. Put the portions you want to freeze individually in plastic wrap – freeze.

Thaw out in fridge what you want to cook. When ready for cooking, put a couple of tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan. Bring to medium hot. When oil is hot place breasts flat in pan and cook for 5 minutes. Carefully turn away from the stuffed pocket to the other side and cook 5 more minutes. Cover, turn off burner and let sit for 5 more minutes while you get the salad ready. Squeeze a little lemon juice on each breast half, garnish with lemon slices and serve.

Figs/Higos

August in Guanajuato brings fresh local figs/higos. Vendors along the roadways or sitting on the street near Alhondiga sell these plump ripe delicious fruits that can be the drivers for salads, main courses or desserts. Here are a few examples of how I have tried to use them.
For salads: quartered figs, toasted and salted pecans, avocado, lettuce with a Mexican blue cheese dressing.

 For main courses:

Grilled Lemon Garlic Lamb Chops with Figs on Rosemary Skewers
Finding good figs here led me to attempt to reproduce in Mexico a dish that I have enjoyed in North Carolina. This dish is grilled figs and lamb chops. It was with great happiness that I found figs (higos) to be plentiful and really delicious here in Guanajuato.
In North Carolina I preferred to use the large yellow spicy flavored Texas style Brunswick figs, but I more frequently used the smaller and sweeter Brown Turkey figs that are more common there. The figs I purchased this past summer during the Guanajuato 'fig "glut' were dark brown to purple and larger than a Brown Turkey with some of the spiciness of the yellow Brunswick. If anyone knows the names of the Mexican varieties, I would love to hear from you.
Finding lamb chops in Mexico has been a more difficult adventure. New Zealand lamb chops are my preference. I asked several butchers for chuletas de cordero (lamb chops). Most replied that they only sold beef (carne de res), pork (cerdo) and chicken (pollo).  At last a butcher at Mercado Hidalgo told me that I could find chuletas de cordero at nearby Commercial. He was correct - sort of. What I found there and bought was labeled Chuleta de Espaldilla Rebanda Come ( Chops of shoulder sliced eats). No clue on the label as to it actually being lamb although I was vigorously assured by the butcher that this was indeed lamb. It was certainly not the thicker and more visually beautiful New Zealand lamb chops cut from the back and including a rib that I was used to getting.  These chuletas were larger and thinner (rabanadas ) - and shoulder (espaldilla) cut. I think of a chop as thicker than a cutlet. So, I think I should use the term cutlet for these much thinner sliced (rabanda) 'lamb chops'.
Two other ingredients, lemons and fresh rosemary, also presented problems. Lemons are something I had just resigned myself to never see again, but I was lucky as a friend brought us a generous supply of small delicious lemons. I was also lucky to find a mature rosemary bush growing out of the scrub alongside a callejon near our casita.
So,  I put the Chuletas de Espaldilla Rebanda Come in a marinade that I made of lemon juice, garlic and balsamic vinegar for an hour or so while I set up a charcoal fire - an altogether different adventure.
I cut a half a dozen rosemary sprigs, sharply pointed on the end, and pushed them through aletrnating slices of lemon and figs - leaving the rosemay leaves on the sprigs.
When the charcoal was evenly grey and ready I put the rosemary sprigs with lemon and figs on the grill by themselves as the lamb slices (rabanadas) were thin and would cook quickly. I turned the sprigs over to sear the lemons slices and figs on all sides, and then moved them to the edge of the grill to caramelize. Then I placed the chuletas on the hottest part of the center and covered the grill. The rosemary produces a lot of fragrent flavorful smoke. I cooked them covered for a couple of minutes on either side.
 I then arranged them on a plate with the rosemary sprigs of figs and lemons to cool down a few minutes before serving.
The dish was good but more of a snack ( botano ) than a main course ( plato principal ) as there is little, but flavorful, meat on the Chuletas de Espaldilla Rebanda Come.
I told my friend, Conrad Lambert, about my inability to find the kind of lamb chops that I really wanted. Conrad solved the problem. He told me that Mega has frozen New Zealand lamb chops in a frozen food box across from the fresh seafood. Woo Hoo!
For desserts: Fresh and candied figs - on ice cream - try coconut! Or on slice of pay de queso from the PAN (spelled with the colors of the Mexican flag)bakery near Dos Rios.
Needless to say all of these dishes would not be put together in one meal, rather you may spread out the use of your kilo of figs over several days by having a fig salad one night, a fig main course the next and a dessert of figs on a third night to manage your fresh figs reasonably.