Mexican night, with a little helpful inspiration

I was leafing through the September 2015 issue of Food and Wine and came across an article about Mexican chef Enrique Olivera.  I realized that Shells and I hadn't done a Mexican dinner in a while, so for this meal we broke out the masa and drew inspiration from the article for a different take on some old favorites!

For the first course I put Shells to work with the rolling pin and a plan to make 8 inch corn tortillas.  It was easier said than done and I quickly had to lend my hands to helping flatten out the corn.

While she was rolling I sautéed a batch of mushrooms (I used shiitake for this), shredded some Oaxaca cheese and made a Pico de Gallo. Mushroom quesadillas are something we used to eat on Friday's for lunch in Leon.  While there was a recipe in the article, I kept mine simple with just mushrooms and garlic.

I cooked the tortillas on a cast iron skillet and once I had crisped the first side I added the cheese & mushroom mix, carefully folding the tortilla over to make the quesadilla.

 For the main course I tried a variation on one of my favorite Mexican dishes, Carnitas!  For this version Olivera used pork belly instead of the traditional pork shoulder.  I knew that the extra fat in the pork belly would make this a much different dish!  The full recipe can be found here.

The highlights were a slow braising of the pork belly in an oil and shortening mix (I only used the olive oil) with onion, garlic and morita chiles.  Typically I have braised in a water mix, so I was curious to see how it came out!

After the braising, the pork was cooked in a hot skillet to get the crispy skin and then sliced for tacos.  I served it with lime wedges, Queso Fresco and fresh corn tortillas ... and some ice cold Pacifico, of course!

While this didn't replace traditional pork shoulder carnitas for me, it was a very good incarnation ... try it and enjoy!