From The Kitchen Of Rachelle Underwood



Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Steak, Chicken or Pork in a Zesty Tomatillo Sauce

I'm a HUGE fan of Mexican food. It is fast, cheap, and if prepared well, healthy. I'm always on a search for good ingredients to incorporate into the star of the show, which is the meat. My mother-in-law Sheree, makes a recipe called Green Chili Pork, which is VERY good. It does take alot of work, and so I was trying to find a way to make it a little less work intensive. This recipe has some similarities to green chili pork, but I use way less chilies in my recipe.
I love the tanginess of tomatillo's, and I have only started using them in the last year. They are located in the vegetable section in any supermarket. This recipe is great, because you can use any meat, especially cheap cuts of meats that are nice and tough, to make a variety of meals. I made up a batch of this, using London Broil (1.99/pound), and froze what I didn't use for dinner. I think I will get about 3-4 meals out of cooking this up. Use the meat/sauce for tacos, burritos, tostadas, salads, nachos, enchiladas, and whatever else!


Steak, Chicken or Pork in a Zesty Tomatillo Sauce

3-5 pounds of meat, cubed, seasoned with salt and pepper
7-8 tomatillos, husks removed
6 cloves of garlic, left whole
2 jalapeno pepper, seed, roughly chopped
1 large onion, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, add garlic, onion, and pepper, along with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Cook on medium heat, until vegetables are soft. remove husks from tomatillos, and place whole tomatillos in a medium sized pot, add water until tomatillos are covered. Bring water to boil, and cok tomatillos until they turn a yellowish-green color, or until they are soft. Blend tomatillos, and onion mixture in a blender or food processor until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Preheat large pot that you cooked the onions in on high heat. Add 1 tbsp. oil, let pan get really hot, and then add the cubed meat. Stir occasionally while the meat browns. Add tomatillo mixture, and stir, getting all the brown bits up. Turn off heat.
If you are cooking this in an oven safe pot, cover pot, and put into a 325 degree oven, and cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. If you want to cook this in a crock pot the rest of way, transfer to the crock-pot, and cook for 3-5 hours on high.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yummy! I can't wait to try this with pork. I bet it is sooooo good!-Lana

Jenny Ricks said...

This also looks delicious! I love anything with tomatillos so I will try this for sure!

Andrea Wiseman said...

I made this last night and it was so good! My daughter Gabrielle is insanely picky and she almost never says that something is good when I'm having her try something new-it's a pride thing-anyway she actually said "mmm this is good Mommy". Also I am eating leftovers for lunch and it's slightly better. I used chicken by the way. I like spicy stuff so Lana said I could use a serrano pepper if I wanted more heat. Thank you!! I may attempt the cinn rolls conference weekend-start a tradition.

Rachelle Underwood said...

Andrea, I'm glad it turned out for you. I agree with Lana, do a serrano pepper, or next time don't seed the jalapeno at all. The seeds, and veins are where the heat is in a pepper. So it was good with chicken? Good to know, I had it with beef last time. Glad you are enjoying the post!