I have been in this nostalgic/melancholy funk lately....Missing food that I had many years ago - and loved. So I had to grease up the memory gears, and have a go at it....
First - we need the meat: I wanted to re-create the flavors I remember from my time in Central America....
I went to a Latino Mercado - and found a Costa Rican sauce/marinade that has all of the celery seed, garlic, onion and lots of other veggies ( even cauliflower!) and molasses flavors that are really a hallmark of the Costa Rican roasted chicken I loved. But, as I wanted to inject - and long marinade this meat - I did not want the vinegar and salt in the marinade to predominate the rest of the flavors...so I mixed it with orange juice at a 50/50 rate.
Injected it all over, and poured the rest in the vacuum bag, removed air, sealed it - and put it in the fridge for 2 days.
This was a 6 lb boston butt - it went into the Smokin' Tex. It was lightly smoked with a very small amount of northern Birch, and cherry wood. Again - I was not craving "BBQ" - but trying to re-create a memory of a traditional simple country food from another country.
So - I pulled it @200F - FTC'ed it for an hour then pulled it.
Now - I got busy making the fruit salsa:
1- medium sized ripe mango - peeled and diced about a cup
1- cup of (preferably fresh) pineapple chopped into small pieces
2 Kiwis- peeled and chopped up
1/2 bunch of Cilantro - stemmed and chopped
1/2 medium red sweet onion
1 - healthy squeeze of Lime ( or Lemon if you prefer)
2- 3 pinches of salt
1 - generous dash ( maybe 2 if you are inclined) of crushed red pepper flake
Toss it to mix ingredients
Now - Put pulled pork on four tortillas - and spoon on the fruit salsa.
I gotta tell you - this one is a keeper. It is simple, and the layer of flavors include all five groups. Sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and umami. A real Latin -Caribbean "comfort food"
T
