New Mexican · main

Carne Adovada

Carne Adovada reads richness 6.9, umami 6.5 and sweetness 5.1 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a New Mexican main, about 15 hr 59 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Richness 6.9 · Umami 6.5 · Sweetness 5.1 · Allium 4.9 · Sourness 4.1 · Salinity 4.1 · Floral 3.9 · Earthy 2.3 · Warm Spice 1.9 · Heat 1.6 · Funk & Ferment 1.3 · Herbaceous 1.2 · Bitterness 1.0 · Citrus 0.5

What's in it (12)

Time & effort: about 15 hr 59 min (3 hr 14 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 141.5 kcal, 7.9 g protein, 11.3 g fat, 1.6 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (9 steps)

  1. Understand what New Mexico chile is before you start, because this is the dish that depends on it entirely. New Mexico chile is a single species grown as a set of local cultivars — Chimayo, Espanola Improved, Sandia, Big Jim, and the Hatch valley varieties — and it is used as the sauce itself, not as a seasoning stirred into something else. In carne adovada the pork is submerged in pure red chile and nothing else: no tomato, no stock in the marinade, no browning of the meat. It is not a Tex-Mex chile con carne and it is not Mexican adobo, which uses different chiles and usually vinegar-forward spice pastes.
  2. Chimayo chile is the one to seek. It is a landrace grown in the Espanola Valley in northern New Mexico, thin-fleshed and grown at altitude, with a brighter, fruitier, slightly sour edge and more heat variability than the fatter, sweeter, mass-grown Hatch pods. It is expensive because the yields are low. The Chile Shop, Rancho de Chimayo and several Espanola Valley growers ship pods; New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute is the authority on which cultivar is which. Ancho, guajillo and paprika are all wrong — they are Mexican and Spanish chiles with different sugar and capsaicin profiles.
  3. Wipe the pods clean, tear them open and pull out the stems, seeds and veins. Toast them on a dry comal or heavy pan over medium heat for about 30 seconds a side, until they smell sweet and go slightly flexible. If any pod blackens, throw it out — burnt chile turns the whole batch bitter and there is no fixing it.
  4. Cover the toasted pods with the hot water and weigh them down with a plate. Soak 30 minutes, until they are completely soft.
  5. Blend the pods with 700 ml of their soaking water, the garlic, onion, oregano, cumin, salt, vinegar and honey until absolutely smooth, at least 3 minutes on high. Pass it through a medium sieve, pressing hard, to catch the skin fragments. You should have a thick, brick-red, velvety sauce that just pours.
  6. Put the pork cubes in a non-reactive bowl, pour the chile over, and turn until every piece is coated. Cover and refrigerate at least 12 hours and up to 24. This is the adovada — the marinating — and it is the name of the dish.
  7. Melt the lard in a heavy Dutch oven over medium heat, tip in the pork and all its marinade, add the stock, and bring to a simmer. Cover and braise in a 160 C (325 F) oven for 3 hours, stirring once an hour, until the pork pulls apart with a spoon and the sauce has darkened and thickened around it.
  8. Rest 15 minutes and skim the fat that rises. Eat it with sopaipillas and beans, or rolled into a breakfast burrito the next morning, which is arguably its highest use.
  9. Substitutions: chicken stock can stand in for the pork stock.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.