pulled pork tacos

I’m not quite sure what happened to me over the summer, I feel like Rip Van Winkle waking up from a long nap. Except not for 20 years, just for a couple months, and not sleeping so much as dropping all my good habits about posting here consistently and falling into lazy summertime fugue state. It was a lovely summer, I traveled to Liverpool (excellent city, strongly recommend!), hosted some friends at our house and puttered around the garden. And really, really procrastinated about posting anything here. 

Now I’m trying to snap out of it and actually be a little bit productive. Luckily, these pulled pork tacos that I started working on way back in June, while appropriate for summer, are also hearty and comforting enough for crisper, cooler weather. The pulled pork takes a few hours, but you don’t have to do any work after throwing everything in a big pot and walk away. All you need to make in advance is the pickled cabbage, it’s better a couple days after you make it. You can make the cilantro sauce in 5 minutes, and then everything comes together really fast when the pork is done. It’s excellent for leftovers; pulled pork gets better after a day the fridge.

pulled pork:

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 2 onions, coarsely chopped 

• 1 bulb garlic, cloves peeled and slightly crushed 

• 2 tsp each paprika, cumin and crushed chili flakes

• 1 can (398 ml/14 oz) plum tomatoes, drained 

• 3 tbsp tomato paste

• 1 ½ cups chicken stock

• 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce 

• 2 tbsp brown sugar

• 1/4 cup cider vinegar 

• 1 pork butt roast, about 4-5 pounds

• salt and pepper

Heat oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. When oil is shimmering, add onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until garlic and onions are fragrant and golden brown. Add dry spices and stir through the oil. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until very fragrant. 

Add tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken stock, worcestershire, sugar and vinegar. Bring to a gentle simmer and add the pork. Season with salt and pepper and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot with a lid, leaving a small gap for steam to escape. Cook until meat is falling apart, about 3 hours. Remove the meat and shred with forks. 

The liquid should be thickened significantly, but if you wish to reduce it further cook over medium heat until quite thick. If there is a lot of excess fat, scoop it off the top with a spoon. Toss shredded pork with remaining liquid. 

Serve on warmed corn tortillas with pickled cabbage, avocado slices, green cilantro sauce and a squeeze of lime juice. 

pineapple chili margaritas

I get nervous around those big stemmed margarita glasses. They are awkward and top heavy. I can barely drink a cup of tea, stone cold sober, without spilling a generous amount all over myself. I don't own much white clothing. Add tequila and (ideally) some drowsy, sunny catnapping and a heavy, tippy glass into this equation and I am invariably going to make a mess. It's not a super dignified look. Obviously, you should serve these margaritas however you like, but I think they are best in a sturdy and unprecious tumbler. No unnecessary stemware stress. 

This pineapple margarita is summer in a glass. Tart and sweet sunny yellow pineapple, acid lime juice with just enough sugar to take the edge off the pucker, with tequila and chili for bite. 

Tajin is a delicious Mexican spice blend with chili, salt and lime. It's really good sprinkled on sliced cucumbers, pineapples, mangoes...pretty much any kind of fruit. It's quite sour so if you do use it for the rims, so be judicious at first.

pineapple chili margaritas:

serves 4

• 2 cups frozen pineapple 
• 1 cup ice 
• 4 ounces tequila 
• 2 ounces triple sec
• juice from 2 limes 
• 1/4 cup sugar 
• pinch of chili flakes
• tajin spice, or salt for the rim 

Run a wedge of lime around the rims of four glasses and then dip them into a shallow dish of tajin spice or salt. 

In a blender, combine pineapple, ice tequila, triple sec, lime juice, chili and sugar and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust sugar, lime juice and tequila to your desired levels of sweetness/tartness/booziness. 

Drink in a hammock, if you are particularly confident about your ability to not spill. 

basil and lime gimlet

Sometimes in my head, I imagine a great thing that I'm sure I can do in the real world and it's definitely going to work out, no problem! And sometimes these imaginings do work out pretty well, and sometimes they are huge disasters. I did this last week. I had been turning around the idea of a preserved lemon cocktail in my head for a while and it sounded great. I was a bit worried about saltiness, but I figured I would soak the lemons and reduce the salt. Then I would turn them into a syrup that was sweet and just faintly salty and with that great, perfumed lemon-but-also-not-quite-lemon preserved lemon flavour. My dream cocktail was amazing. I would add basil and make an excellent, uniquely sweet and savoury, fragrant, sophisticated summer lemonade cocktail delight. 

This was hubris my friends. I sliced the preserved lemon into thin wedges, rinsed and soaked it to reduce the salt, and made a simple syrup, totally certain of my true cocktail genius. And then I tasted the revoltingly salty (Duh, right?) yet somehow too sweet syrup. I added lemon juice and more sugar, to try to balance out or at least distract from the off-putting qualities of my concoction. I continued to throw good sugar after bad for quite a while, never really improving things. I wound up with a super thick, still gross, lemon sludge. I put it in the fridge, thinking I could find a way to save it. Then I stared at it every time I opened the fridge for 3 days until I had to face reality and throw it away. 

I had already bought basil though, and I wasn't going to let this gross lemon-tastrophy ruin my basil cocktail dreams. For the next round, I went with a surefire flavour combo, with no daring acrobatics involved: basil, lime and gin. Sweet, tart, summery. All the childish, summer-time fun of limeade combined with all the fun of gin! For the grown-up kiddo in you. 

For now I will keep my preserved lemons for rubbing on chickens and turning into salad dressings. Until another wave of hubris hits me and I turn them into some kind of horrifying meringue. 

basil syrup:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar 
• 1/2 cup basil leaves, chopped

Combine ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil until sugar is dissolved.. Reduce heat, and simmer on low about 5 minutes. 

basil and lime gimlet: 

• juice of one lime
• 1 ounce gin
• 1 ounce basil syrup 
• ice cubes 
• a couple sprigs basil leaves 

Crush basil leaves in a cocktail shaker with a muddler or the end of a wooden spoon. Add all other ingredients and shake vigorously until the shaker frosts over and gets very cold. Strain into a glass and garnish with a stem of basil. Makes one, multiply ingredients by the number of gimlet drinkers.

quince gin fizz

Quince is a funny little fruit. It looks like a knobby, furry little pear and it's very hard and sour when raw. Cooking transforms it into a rosy-pink little gem with a citrusy-appley sort of taste. And the syrup it makes it so lovely and glowingly pink.

It also has slightly poisonous seeds that can give off hydrogen cyanide when ingested, so that's fun! Quince is like a really low risk fruit version of fugu fish. Don't worry though, you need to eat a lot of quince seeds to harm you. I think it's a good metaphor-fruit for a New Years Eve cocktail; about transforming something odd and a bit difficult into something lovely and slightly thrilling. Because all cocktails are elaborate metaphors about your life right? 

Anyway, happy new year! I hope you have a wonderful and quince-like 2017. 

quince gin fizz:

• gin
• limes
• quince syrup (recipe below)
• soda water
• mint sprigs for garnish

For each drink: 

Peel a strip of lime peel over a glass, aiming to catch the oils that spray out in the glass. Give it a squeeze to get a bit more oil into the glass. 

Combine 1 ounce gin, 1/2 ounce lime juice and 1/2 ounce syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into the glass. Top up with soda water and garnish with mint. 

quince syrup: 

• 4 quinces, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup sugar 
• 2 tbs lime juice
• 2 cups water

Combine all ingredients in a small pan and simmer on low heat for two hours, until syrup thickens slightly and turns a lovely, jewelled rose colour. Store in refrigerator. 

Photos: Tyrel Hiebert

Spicy tequila sour

This is a kind of seasonless cocktail. It can certainly qualify as a summer drink; the tequila and lime combination feels beachy and sunny. But the pleasant heat from the jalapenos has a winterizing effect; it will warm you during these rainy, snowy, grey months while you pine for sunshine and heat. This cocktail is highly effective all year round. It will fortify your spirits and remind you that winter can't actually last forever.

The tequila sour is based on the whisky sour, but with tequila and lime in place of whisky and lemon. It's easy to double or triple for and you set it out in the pitcher for self serves cocktails if you like. 

jalapeno simple syrup: 

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 cup water

• 1 jalapeno, thinly sliced

Combine all ingredients in a small pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the syrup is quite spicy when you taste it (let it cool well before tasting!). Keep in mind that the other cocktail ingredients will mute the heat; I try to make the syrup a bit hotter than I want the drink to be. 

Let cool. 

hot tequila sour: 

• 6 ounces tequila

• 3/4 cup fresh lime juice

• 4 ounces jalapeno syrup

• 1/2 cup water

• thin lime and jalapeno slices to garnish

Combine tequila, lime juice, syrup and water in a pitcher with ice and stir to combine. Adjust to taste, adding more lime juice or syrup if needed. 

Divide between four glasses and garnish with lime and japapeno slices.  Share with some friends who need a beachy, balmy, spicy boost!

Photo credit: Tyrel Hiebert