Pork loin with Mole Sauce and Nopales

Pork Loin in mole and nopales/ or Nopales y puerco en mole

 

 

This recipe came about when I use to make my dad’s and my favorite dish, which is Nopales en molito con tortas de huachal. I would make the favorite dish but my hubby suggested it needed meat. So instead of the tortas I made this with pork loin.

 

So what the hell are nopales you may be asking…. Nopales = Cactus! Yup that sums it up. I will admit as a child I was not a fan, but fuck are they good.

 

Alright so lets get to cooking…..

 

For the Mole/Sauce(a very basic sauce)

7/8 chile guajillo (for more pics of dried peppers refer to enchilada recipe)

5 or so chile de arbol (use less to none if you are not a fan of the level of heat)

1 garlic clove

Salt – I eyeball amount. I lose the dam tsp/tbs measuring things all the time

Flour – about 2 tablespoons

 

For the rest:

About a pound of pork loin

4 nopales

 

Get your mole going first by de-stemming/deseeding the peppers.

Add enough water to cover peppers and garlic. Bring to a boil, let simmer. I will blend the peppers before adding to meat. Done:

 

Next the pork:

You can sub for costillas de Puerco, which will be awesome but I opted for the easier to eat cut of meat here. So then I cut the meat into about 1 inch pieces. Heat up about 3 tablespoons of oil and add meat. Season meat with your choice of seasoning. I used Goya Adobo Sazon. Sear meat till brown. Enjoy the aroma!!!!

Its getting there! Still browning....

 

Finally lets work on those nopales:

 

Nopales have these spike like things on them that need to be removed.

So I just get a knife and start sliding knife on top of nopales to remove them.

Next I trim the edge of the nopales. Be very careful when doing this! Some Mexican grocery stores may already have these ready to cook, de-spiked and all. And you may even see canned/jarred nopales but I prefer fresh. Last I chop the nopales to desired size.

 
So by now the meat should be nice and brown. I remove meat from pan and add in nopales to sauté. Sauté the nopales for about a minute. You do not want to over sauté the nopales. They cook fast.

Once slightly cooked I add back the pork.

 

Time to blend the peppers! I add the flour, salt, peppers, garlic and some of the water used to cook peppers in to the blender and blend. I then pour the mole using a colander over the meat/nopales and let simmer.

 

Serve with rice/beans or just eat it with tortillas! Enjoy!!!

Also try with sopa de fideo, which is what I prefer but didn’t have fideo. You can also add chopped onion to nopales when cooking.

Flan flan and more flan!

She’s ALIVE! She’s alive!

I am indeed. Feel my wrath! Eat my FLAN! You will love me for it!



So once upon a time you were craving something sweet, heavenly and creamy to indulge in! And you came across this long hair skull/Halloween/chocolate loving chic and she said ‘hey do you want some flan?’ And in spite of her scary appearance and wait are those spiders crawling all over her you tried her flan and immediately were bewitched! Mmmm desserts!





For the flans times 3 you will need:

3 cans of condensed milk

3 cans of evaporated milk

9 eggs

1 cup of sugar

1 tsp of ground cinnamon (estimated measurement I eyeball this)

vanilla (I eyeball this amount too)



If you must make just one flan and not follow my advice divide all by three….





So to create such deliciousness start by heating the sugar and cinnamon on a sauce pan till it's like a syrup…

Once the sugar/cinnamon mixture is in syrup form add to your pan*. No need to try and spread it. It will spread once its start baking.

*I think 8/9” pie foil works well because its sticks less and sometimes I’m a lazy @ss so easy cleaning works for me!



So oh yeah preheat oven to 350 degrees… and while you wait for the oven to heat up…. Mix the rest of the ingredients. I start with mixing the eggs and then add the cans in and the vanilla.

Once all mixed up prepare the bake ware!



Okay here is the tricky part. Flan is creamy delicious because of the cooking method. It’s called bano maria or like bain marie according to Wikipedia. I use what I believe is a 8x8 square baking dish and add hot/boiled water till about half full. Then I insert the pan with just the syrup goodness. Next add the flan mixture and insert in oven. 

 Make sure you are not high on caffeine or like in my case my normal dose of Pepsi and chocolate because you will not have a steady hand and might spill some of this deliciousness.



Once the flan, flan, and flan are in the oven bake those bad boys for about an hour. If you use a smaller but deeper pan add more bake time. You might see it turn a little golden on the rim of bake dish. It’s done once the center is not runny. Let the flans cool down and enjoy.



So here are the reasons I make three:

1 is to eat immediately after baking

2 to let cool down and then put in fridge for next day enjoyment

3 to kindly share with my co-workers because sometimes they are awesome and share their cooking with me! If your co-workers are assholes just eat the third one.



TRY ALSO:

Top with whipped cream

Add rum to mixture

If you are a coffee fan…add coffee to sugar when melting

Run a toothpick or knife around the rim of bake dish to loosen the flan. Cover with plate and flip.



And there you have it folks FLAN FLAN & FLAN! Now you don’t have to wonder “how does she do it?” After reading this and you find yourself still lacking the motivation to make some we can use the good o’l fashion barter system and exchange food!

Hint: I kind of like chocolate!

I almost forgot to take a pic. So here is a pic of my breakfast serving! Dont judge me!