Tacos Árabes

Botch

The following history is me paraphrasing the article in Cooks Illustrated, where I got this recipe:
When the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of WWI, a bunch of Turks immigrated to Puebla, Mexico.  They brought their shawarma (lamb/goat spit-roasted and slathered with a yogurt sauce, folded and eaten on a yeasted flatbread called pan árabe); they found the dish was similar to Tacos al Pastor, though lamb/goat wasn't popular there so they adapted with pork and added Mexico's chile condiments.  
 
Normally the meat is sliced thin, marinated in a spicy liquid, piled up on a vertical spit, roasted and sliced off as the outer bits get crispy.  The CI recipe called for pork butt sliced thin, then roasted in the spicy liquid, then reduce the liquid down, spread onto the slices, and put under a broiler.  I modified that as I wanted to use the Egg and I had to use pork steaks, as the smallest butt the store had was 5.5 lbs.  Roasted the pork steaks in a broth with onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, Mex oregano, black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, thyme and lime juice/water (and man did the house smell good!)
 
Pork out of the broth, cooling until the Egg got up to temp:
 

 
I was afraid the meat may be a bit dry since it wasn't pork butt, so I just put them on my Small just long enough to get some color.  That's better:
 

 
Instead of reducing the broth to a syrup, I boiled it down just halfway, cubed the pork and shredded it in my food processor, added it to the broth, and the consistency was perfect for "tacos".  
 
The red sauce scared me a bit: an entire 7-oz can of Chipotles en adobo?!?  It was only watered down with 2 Tbs of tomato paste, 1/4 cup of water and juice from one lime.  I stuck to the recipe, could water it down for the leftovers meals if needed.
 
The yogurt sauce used greek yogurt, roasted garlic, cilantro, lime juice and EVOO.
 
The red sauce was very hot, but the yogurt sauce cooled down my mouth at the same time, and these were delicious:
 

 
Per the recipe, pita bread stood in for pan áribe, also added some iceberg I had to use up, and cilantro/lime.  There should've also been some pickled red onions on top, but some dummy forgot to make up a couple jars yesterday.  
 
Kinda labor-intensive, but were delicious and tasted like nothing I've really had before (that mix of chipotle and yogurt, wow!)  Definitely be making these again.  Thanks for looking.  

johnmitchell

That sounds and looks delicious. Thanks for the history write up very interesting!

caliking

Bravo! That looks like a home run, for sure. bookmarked.

GrateEggspectations

Love it, Botch. Salivating’ over here. 

alaskanassasin

Awesome cook @Botch I am not sure swmbo could take the heat but I might attempt this.

lousubcap

Great writeup and incredible plate right there.  Way to bring it home.  

Botch

Forgot to post the actual recipe, hope this is readable.
 

 

 

dbCooper

@Botch - Those look and sound outstanding, very nice!

BeanHead

Nice! The Mexican meat market near us sells these and I always wanted to make them, but felt like I wouldn’t ever beat what they do (probably because I would be looking at ways to cut the fat). Looks like the pork steaks accomplished that and you kept the good flavors. I’ll be trying this soon! 

Stormbringer

Great cook, great commentary and amazing pictures. Especially the last one.

bluebird66

That looks great!