You know what takes a lot of time? Standing over the stove and browning every cube of stew meat on all sides and in batches. That’s why we brown the pork shoulder whole, which develops a ton of flavor with a fraction of the time and effort. You can let the stew sit for a full 12 hours so all the flavors have a chance to really meld together, but this step is totally optional. Serve the stew as the centerpiece surrounded by fixings that guests can pick and choose to build their own bowls.
Recipe information
Yield
8 servings
Ingredients
Tangy Red Cabbage
½
2
1
Charred Avocado with Chili Powder
2
½
Stew and Assembly
1
3
3
2
½
4
2
3
Preparation
Tangy Red Cabbage
Step 1
Toss cabbage, vinegar, and sugar in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper and vigorously massage with your hands until cabbage is softened and slightly wilted.
Step 2
Do Ahead: Cabbage can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.
Charred Avocado with Chili Powder
Step 3
Cook avocados, cut side down, in a large skillet, preferably cast iron, over medium-high heat, until cut sides are blackened, 5–7 minutes. Transfer to a plate and let cool.
Step 4
Use a spoon to scoop avocados out of their skins, then cut each half lengthwise into quarters. Transfer to a plate and squeeze lime over top. Season with salt and sprinkle with chili powder.
Stew and Assembly
Step 5
Season pork generously all over with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven or other heavy pot over medium-high. Cook pork, turning occasionally, until browned all over, 15–18 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and let cool.
Step 6
Reduce heat to medium and cook onions and garlic, cut side down, in the same pot, tossing onions occasionally, until onions are browned in spots and garlic is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add cornmeal, chiles, and cumin seeds and cook, stirring constantly, until cornmeal is toasty smelling and cumin is fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add vinegar, stirring to release any bits stuck on bottom of pot, then add 8 cups water. Season generously with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer.
Step 7
Meanwhile, use a knife to slice pork meat from the bone, discarding any large pieces of fat. Cut meat into 2" pieces.
Step 8
Return pork meat and bone to pot and bring stew back up to a simmer. Cover with a lid, leaving slightly askew so steam can escape, and cook, adjusting heat to maintain a very gentle simmer and skimming foam from surface as needed, until meat is fork-tender, 1½–2 hours. Uncover pot and let stew cool (bone and all) until no longer steaming. Cover pot and chill stew at least 12 hours (you can skip this step, but it will dramatically improve the flavor).
Step 9
Uncover stew and spoon off half to three-quarters of fat on the surface; discard. Gently reheat stew until barely simmering. Pluck out and discard bone and garlic heads (don't worry about any cloves that may have escaped into stew). Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed. Ladle into bowls and serve with Charred Avocados with Chili Powder, Tangy Red Cabbage, corn nuts, chicharrones, hot sauce, and/or sour cream as desired.
Step 10
Do Ahead: Stew can be made 3 days ahead. Keep chilled.
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Reviews (17)
Back to TopIf you can find them consider using a mix of smoked chiles in this dish. I used a combination of smoke dried chiplote Mecca, ancho, morita and guajillo chiles. These chilles range from low to medium in terms of heat. They combined flavors of the chiles result in a rich multilayered flavor to the dish.
RB
Ithaca
11/12/2021
This soup is wonderful! I can’t help but think that people who thought it was “bland” really took a wrong turn somewhere. Love the cornmeal in it, I’ll be doing this more often in soups. The confusion about the garlic blows my mind, as it’s a pretty common method of infusing garlic flavor but keeping it in the background. The head shouldn’t be falling apart if you only cut the top. Don’t peel any skins off unless there are a few really loose ones. Discard it at the end. The only change I made is that at the end, I blitzed the rehydrated chiles in my little smoothie maker with about a half cup of the soup liquid and added it back in, which added a lot more heat. Loved this, will be making it again and again.
Jessamin
Raleigh, NC
12/25/2020
We thought this recipe was delicious! A few slight changes were made. I used a 4lb pork sirloin instead of the pork shoulder. 1.5 heads of garlic, peeled, with large pieces cut in half. At the end, all the garlic melted into the stew, and we didn't have to worry about pulling flakes of garlic out. I couldn't get ahold of chiles de arbol, and replaced them with 1/2 tsp of red chile flakes + 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper. I think this change was important, because it added a firm, smooth heat to the stew. The big issue others have complained about is that there isn't enough flavor in this stew. Keeping in the garlic and replacing the chiles should do the trick!
Kristie U
New England
11/24/2019
Right. So here's how to save this recipe. First, the recipe has been changed to tell people to remove the garlic heads after cooling the soup. That's helpful. Yes the garlic will fall apart when you cut it in half. If you cut closer to the root end it stays together a bit better. Any little separate cloves of garlic I just left out of the pot and tossed. You're also going to need to sift through the soup for random bits of fat from the pork and garlic skin before serving. When I tasted the stew (after the three days in the fridge to blend flavors) it was ...porky, and bland. None of us were impressed. So I tried charring the avocado and it seemed to add nothing except something green and pretty for the magazine photo shoot. Instead I ended up dumping a whole container of salsa verde into the stew, then I added some salso verde gauc as a topping along with the sour cream, and corn nuts. I didn't do the cabbage, but I think it also would improve the flavor. By the time I was done it was pretty fabulous. I served it on Halloween (made a triple batch and served 30), and everyone loved it. It really does need something tangy and citrusy like the salsa verde though, otherwise it's pretty blah and not worth the time and effort.
Anonymous
11/4/2018
loved it. had never put cornmeal in a soup/stew before and it gave it a great consistency. cooked it in the instant pot for 30 minutes after browning the meat and onions which i doubled. put in abotu 10 roughly chopped garlic cloves and add some soaked navy beans. the cabbage was a great addition. don't think charring the avocado added anything so will skip next time. all was much better the next day.
redwood shores, Ca
11/3/2018
Also, the garlic! What was I supposed to do with that? Was I meant to pull the heads out and squeeze the cloves into the soup after it had simmered? That seemed to make sense, but I was afraid with 2 whole heads of garlic, that kind of addition would overwhelm the other flavors.
stickyheels
Durham, NC
10/15/2018
This stew was just "fine". Without the cabbage or the sourcream/yogurt topping I found it to be very bland. I'm not sure the chiles did anything at all? I found the instructions confusing and unclear - was I to leave the chiles whole? was I to dice them before adding (for the record, I chopped off the green tops and tossed them in)? The entire pot, cooled, had a gelatinous texture so it was very difficult to remove the fat from the "top" without losing a decent quantity of the soup itself? Overall I was disappointed - a $15 cut of meat that I actually forgot was in the fridge for leftovers because it wasn't much to remember!
stickyheels
Durham, NC
10/15/2018