Mexican Adobada – Recipe V Racism

It’s an oxymoronic truth that racism knows no borders. Think of that greaseball you hate because of the colour of his skin, the language you don’t understand or your pathetic fear that he will take your miserable job.  He may very well hold similar bile for some ‘foreign’ unfortunate who for reasons of geography, colour, creed or economics, has come within the scope of his bigotry.

Here in Ireland, we once prided ourselves on our open-minded attitude and truly welcoming nature. That was before we started seeing too many “foreigners“ around the place. Now, we are as sectarian as the country next door. (I really don’t like them either, you know. They speak with a funny accent and drink warm beer).

This racist nonsense has to be called out for what it is. If we were all to stick rigidly to our culture and parochial views, none would ever get an opportunity to grow the mind and expand our world view. We would not (if we were true racists) get to try the food of other cultures and learn how to combine and modify recipes for the betterment of ourselves (if not all mankind).

Watching current world events with a degree of disbelief and horror, I see the people of Mexico coming in for a pretty heavy dose of overt and covert racism. So, in support of a bit of balance and because it it incredibly tasty, I devised this Mexican Inspired Pork Adobada. I cooked it here in Ireland and so far, have served it to delighted people from four countries.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kilo of pork shoulder
• 4 Ancho chilis
• 4 Guajillo Chilis
• 6 to 8 cloves of garlic
• 3 teaspoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of black pepper
• 2 teaspoons of honey
• 2 teaspoons of tomato purée

Place the dried chilis in a bowl and add boiling water. Leave the chilis to reconstitute for about half an hour. Slice the pork into nice bite sized chunks.

This is a big blender. There will be plenty of paste.

Peel the garlic. Remove the stalks and the seeds from the chilis. Add everything including about half the chilli soaking water but not the pork to a blender and blitz to a paste.

Use high grade Irish pork, none of your foreign muck!

Pour the paste over the pork pieces and mix to coat evenly. Leave this aside for a few hours, or overnight.

This has masses of flavour.

You will need the time to get the other ingredients for a decent Mexican style meal together. We had barbecued sweetcorn and hand made corn tortillas in the mix. The corn tortillas take a bit of time in preparation, despite the simple ingredients.

Some time ago, I was given a gift of a tortilla press and it was pressed (literally) into action on this. The internet is full of corn tortilla recipes. I used corn flour, olive oil, salt and water.

Pressing my point home. The tortillas are really good.

While I was pressing out the tortillas, one of the guests was preparing the corn. I failed to get the recipe. But it was delicious.

The pork needs to be watched as the honey can burn.

Fry the pork in a little oil until cooked. Serve it in tortillas with the corn, spring onions, yoghurt and a little lime. We did our bit for open international trade by drinking Mexican beer too.

A nice bit of yoghurt is good on this.

This is well worth preparing. Can I suggest that you park your partisan principals, run off the racists and get a multinational / multicultural group together and enjoy a new experiences.

Footnote on Mexican ingredients in Ireland. There is a great Mexican store on Dublin’s South Richmond Street. Picado Mexican is run by husband and wife team, Lily Ramirez-Foran & Alan Foran. It’s well worth a visit.