Tacos Al Pastor

Tacos al pastor in the sun!

About a year back, I was introduced to tacos al pastor by a good bud while traveling for work. Not Mexico, Vancouver actually. I've been sort of obsessing about them since, and finally made them myself. 

I recently had a very brief stint in Vancouver and as luck would have it, there was a sweet little Mexican joint stationed near where I was staying on Cordova near Cambie: LaCasita. Man, their tacos al pastor were the bomb! 

Sorry for the dark photo, it was dark in there

While I'm particularly proud of mine (first photo), you can see from the LaCasita's (second photo) that I didn't have the meat quite right. The taste was working for me, but it didn't have that crisp shwarma type consistency.

So where did I go wrong? Well, too be honest, I just kind of got lazy and ran out of time. You see, Kenji from the Food Lab has tacos al pastor figure out.

I've mentioned The Food Lab before, and if you guys some how out maneuvered all the links I threw in, and haven't checked it out yet, please DO. Seriously! Really innovative, cleverly written, and reveals the science of cooking in a way that anyone can recreate.

So where did I go wrong? I started the meat a day too late. Let me explain with some pics.

Step 1

Adobo

Marinade

Slice your pork cut of choice (I used pork shoulder) super thin. I did this step after a night at the Saloon so it was pretty thick. Marinade it overnight in an adobo sauce: Essentially chilis, garlic and vinagre. I didn't have a great selection of chilis, dried chilis or even a powder form of the traditional chilis, so I improvised with some ancho, chipotle, chimayo, and pasilla chili powders, some cumin, chipotles in adobo sauce and of course, garlic, vinagre and salt.


I know some of you still haven't checked out The Food Lab so I'm quoting Kenji here so you all know why salt is so important for this marinade.

"Salt is special. See, rather than simply flavoring meat by working itself in between muscle fibers, it actually alters the structure of meat, primarily by causing certain parts of the protein myosin to become dissolvable in water.

What does this accomplish? Well, by dissolving myosin, muscle structure is greatly loosened, allowing it to retain more moisture (this is the principle behind brining), and more importantly in this case, it allows proteins between muscle groups to cross-link, causing them to stick to each other.

This is why, for instance, sausages get a nice bouncy, snappy texture, and why if you remove the salt from one, it becomes crumbly and dry..."

See? use salt!

Step 2

After marinading overnight, you will want to pack your pork into a loaf pan while layering  in some slices of bacon. Cook at 275 F for ~4 hours.

Step 3

After its out of the oven, allow it to cool, and then cover and let it sit overnight in the fridge. The next day, slide it out of the pan and slice it like bread. Then sear it on a pan and serve with some pineapple (braised in the drippings), some onion, cilantro and lime. 

 

Unfortunately I didn't have time to let it sit in the refrigerator so I just scooped it out, seared some pineapple in the drippings, ran my knife through it all, and seared it all together.

 
Tortillas

You may recall from this entry that I tried to make corn tortillas by hand, and instead made corn pancakes (which in my defence were really good and probably also worth making with some crema and green onions). In the post, I also theorized that a tortilla press would solve the main issues I had: Not flat enough, and too hard to flatten by hand without crevasses forming. Turns out I was right, although I have not completely given up on making them by hand yet.

Step 1
Combine 2 parts Maseca/Masa Harina corn flour treated with lime (calcium hydroxide, not the citrus), and a bit more than 1 part water. Also add a good pinch of salt for taste and work it together until it feels like a warm, slightly grainy snowball. I'm terrible at dough analogies. 




Divide into meatball sized balls and place between a folded piece of plastic wrap, in  the center of the tortilla press.

Step 2

SMASH!

Step 3

Carefully remove from plastic wrap, and sear for ~2min per side in an un-oiled non-stick pan on medium - medium high heat. 

They will seem too dry to fold initially but once placed in some tinfoil to re-moisten in their own steam, they become a lot more flexible.

Add a few tortillas to a plate with a good portion of seared pork, top with some onions, cilantro and some lime (and anything else you like, I made a basic mango salsa), and then...

Step 4

Tacos