Impostor al Pastor by Alison Roman

I’m from Southern California, and I’ve experienced the true delight of the same L.A. street tacos that Alison is trying to replicate in this recipe. Alison’s right: no one can perfectly recreate the crispy yet tender al pastor tacos of L.A. Those street vendors know pork better than anyone. But dang, Alison’s impostor al pastor tacos get pretty darn close. Taco bout a good taco! 

Heads up – this recipe isn’t a-whip-it-up-in-an-hour type. The meat really benefits from a few hours of marinating, and the marinade itself is somewhat labor intensive. But if you have the time, it’ll be well spent on this recipe. 

I prepared the marinade in the morning before the work day started. Notice my coffee next to the pineapple :). The marinade also serves as a fabulous sauce to drizzle over the tacos, chips, romaine lettuce, etc. The sauce is a blend of white onion, pineapple, spices, guajillo peppers and pepper water. The pepper prep includes toasting the peppers in a skillet until they look charred and puffed up by the heat. Then they need to have their seeds removed and cut into thick rings. The rings of peppers sit in hot water for 10 or so minutes to soften. Then the peppers are transferred to a blender with the other aforementioned ingredients, along with a cup of the pepper water. The whole process took about 20 minutes, with another 10 minutes of cleaning up. I cut the pork into 1-inch thick slabs and placed them in a large bowl to marinate with two-thirds of the sauce. 

After work ended, it came time to cook the pork! This took a little while. Alison recommends cooking the pork through once, cutting it into smaller pieces, and then doing a second round of cooking to get a slightly crispy exterior. I was not able to achieve the level of crisp like in L.A., but the flavor was pretty darn close! FYI – the pork did a number on my cast iron skillet. It was very hard to clean. I might try a non-stick skillet next time. 

Now, for the fixings. I followed Alison’s recommendations almost to the letter, including chopped tomatillos, cilantro, limes, cotija, and pineapple salsa. The marinade only calls for half of the pineapple, and Alison includes a recipe to combine the other half with onion, cilantro and lime juice for a salty-sweet taco topping. I received rave reviews from Madeline, Sam, and Jordan. All of them openly admitted that this one falls in their top meals from the project – and they’ve had a lot of them! 

123 recipes cooked, 102 to go.

Tiny Peppers with Yuzu Kosho by Alison Roman

I agree with Alison that serving tiny peppers that have been tossed in a paste also made of tiny peppers is kind of funny. Meta, even. But regardless of how odd the concept might sound, these little green dudes were surprisingly a hit. 

The recipe calls for shishito peppers: small, green, slightly wrinkly and mildly spicy peppers widely found at Trader Joes. I’ve never seen them at Whole Foods, but they seem to be at TJ’s every week. These peppers are ever so slightly more spicy than a bell pepper, and most of their kick lies in their seeds. I’m not known for having a particularly high spice tolerance, and I still felt confident enough to eat them whole (save the stem) and in one bite. Believe me, that says something. 

I tossed the peppers with olive oil, salt, and pepper before placing them over the grill, set to medium-high. I could blame this on Alison, or I could just admit that I wasn’t really thinking, but I should have known that the peppers were likely to fall through the grate. An extra 30 seconds of critical thinking could have provoked me to put a grill pan underneath them. In the end, we lost about 20% of our peppers that day. May they rest in peace. 

The survivors were tossed with several tablespoons of yuzu kosho, a tangy pepper paste, and lime juice before hitting the table. Our meal that evening consisted of smoked ribs (my father-in-law is a master), Alison’s Crushed Baby Potatoes (aka her far better version of a potato salad), the peppers, and corn bread. For dessert, we had Alison’s Sour Cherry and Sesame Galette (post to come). Toward the end of the meal, Jordan turned to me and said, “This one goes in my top 3 Alison appetizers.” So I call that a win. 

120 recipes cooked, 105 to go.