Poblano Pork Green Chili

Some of you will be familiar with Colorado green chili. Well this is not that! (There are some similarities though). We're not in Colorado. We add beans whenever possible (read about Blue Zones!) and we're using poblano peppers. And also, we add on of our favorite secret ingredients. More on that later.  

Get that dutch oven (DO) ready!! This should surprise no one anymore...

Ingredients

3-4 lbs pork shoulder, in 1/2" cubes
5-6 poblano peppers
2 jalapeno peppers
1 15 oz can fire-roasted tomatoes
1/2 c. water
4 c. chicken stock
2 onions diced
1 t. cumin
1/2 t. salt
2 15 oz cans pinto beans, rinsed and drained
3 T. minced garlic, or 8 cloves minced
1/4 c. flour
Bacon fat
1 lime
Sour cream to top
Cilantro

Instructions

Pour the water into the DO, then the pork and salt. Cook with the lid on for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.







Time to roast the poblanos and jalapenos. Remove the seeds and halve them. Cover a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray. 

Spread the poblano and jalapeno halves around the baking sheet (option to sprinkle oil, salt and pepper over them if you like) and place in the oven on broil (not preheated) for about 15 minutes until the skins are blackened. Yes, we're going to burn them!






Stay in a hurry and dice up your 2 onions. 










Turn the heat on the DO to medium-high, take off the lid and cook off all of the water from the pork while stirring it. This should take about another 20 minutes. 

When the peppers are nice and blackened, remove them 
from the oven. 

Spoon them into a glass bowl and seal with plastic wrap to allow them to finish cooking themselves down. The skins will detach themselves. It will take about 10 minutes.

Turn the oven to 325 degrees F. 

Dutch oven evaporation update....It's still going. You may feel like the water will never cook off. But it will! Don't pour it off. You need all the pork juice! Cook for about 5 minutes after the water is gone to get some browning on the meat. 

You know you're good when there's a nice fawn on the bottom of the dutch oven. We'll deglaze next with the onions and Bacon fat. (If you're new here...you should know we always capitalize Bacon...because. Duh. It's Bacon!)








Spoon the pork out of the dutch oven and then add 1 T of Bacon fat to the DO. (canola oil if you don't have Bacon fat). And add in the onions and let them sweat on medium heat until caramelized. 

This process also deglazes the pan so we can make good use of those delicious pork bit that are coating the DO.

Remove the the peppers from the bowl and peel away all the skins. Set the jalapenos aside for now.









Give the poblanos a rough cut and put them with the tomatoes into a food processor. 









And call in your mini chef to blitz (pulsing not holding) them until well mixed, not pureed. You don't want to lose those chunks completely!

Add in the garlic and cumin to the DO and cook for about 1 minute, until your house smells delicious.

Fold in the flour for about a minute, then pour over your chicken stock stirring intermittently. Bring almost to a boil. 







Then add in the processed vegetables and pork. Fold together. Bring to a simmer, cover and put in the oven for about an hour.

Toward the end of the hour while the DO is in the oven, prepare the rest of the ingredients. Rinse and drain the beans. Mince the jalapenos, slice the lime and chop the cilantro.

Take the DO out of the oven and add the beans. Replace the lid and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Then follow along here to finish and dish up! 

We make this one when we feel like we want something comforting to warm us from the inside but is outside the box. It's a unique soup that hits all sorts of flavor notes and gives that warmth with an exciting spicy hit. We dare you not to have seconds...nevermind. Go for it!