Chicharrones en Salsa Verde

Isabella's semester report: 4.0 again. Perfect grades, perfect attendance, the HOSA club, the volunteer hours, the unbroken chain of excellence that is Isabella Martinez Gutierrez at fifteen. She doesn't celebrate. She recalibrates. The second semester is different, she tells me — harder classes, AP Biology, the research project she's been planning since September. She is a machine of self-improvement and I sometimes worry that the machine runs too hot, that the engine will overheat, that the girl inside the machine needs to stop and breathe and eat ice cream and be fifteen instead of a future nurse. But then I watch her read a nursing textbook in bed with a cup of my caldo on the nightstand and I think: she is breathing. This is her breathing. This is her ice cream. Everyone rests differently.

Sofia's Instagram has passed one thousand followers. She marked the milestone by posting a photograph of Rosa's hands — the one Alejandro sent, the photograph of young Rosa in the kitchen with flour on her hands — and the caption said: "1,000 followers. But there's only one person I wish could see this. This is my abuela Rosa. She never had Instagram. She didn't need it. She had flour. And her flour reached more people than any algorithm ever could." The post got four hundred likes. Sofia showed me and I said: "That's a lot of likes." She said: "That's nothing. But the caption is everything." She is twelve and she writes like a poet and I don't know where she got it because I write like a baker — functional, accurate, slightly floury — but Sofia writes like someone who understands that words are dough and you can shape them into anything.

Camila has started writing songs. Real songs, with verses and choruses, written in pencil on notebook paper in her kindergarten handwriting — some words spelled correctly, some creatively interpreted, all of them earnest. Her latest song is called "The Bread Song" and the chorus goes: "Bread bread bread, my mama makes the bread, bread bread bread, it keeps us warm and fed." Four lines. A hit. I am not biased. (I am entirely biased.)

I made chicharrones en salsa this week — pork cracklings simmered in a green tomatillo sauce until they soften and absorb the sauce and become something between meat and bread, the texture of a sponge that has soaked up the ocean. Rosa made this. She bought chicharrones from the market in Juárez — big sheets of fried pork skin, still warm — and she broke them into the salsa and let them cook, and the kitchen smelled like pork and tomatillo and the particular satisfaction of food that is cheap and good and filling, which is the holy trinity of poverty cooking, and Rosa was the high priestess.

So here it is — Rosa’s chicharrones en salsa, the dish that smells like pork and tomatillo and the particular satisfaction of feeding three daughters on almost nothing. I make it when I need to remember that the simplest things carry the most weight — like Camila’s four-line chorus, like Sofia’s caption that mattered more than four hundred likes, like Isabella reading nursing textbooks in bed and calling it rest. This recipe is cheap and good and filling, and Rosa would tell you that’s all any recipe ever needs to be.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

8 ounces pork chicharrones (large sheets of fried pork skin), broken into 2-inch pieces
1 pound tomatillos, husked and rinsed
2 serrano peppers, stems removed
1/2 medium white onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon vegetable oil or lard
3/4 cup chicken broth or water
Salt to taste
Warm corn tortillas, for serving

Instructions

Roast the tomatillos and peppers. Place the tomatillos and serrano peppers on a dry comal or skillet over medium-high heat. Turn occasionally until charred in spots and softened, about 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool slightly.
Blend the salsa verde. Add the roasted tomatillos, serranos, onion, garlic, cilantro, cumin, and a generous pinch of salt to a blender. Blend until smooth but still slightly textured.
Cook the salsa. Heat the oil or lard in a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Carefully pour in the salsa verde — it will splatter. Stir and cook for 5 minutes until the salsa darkens slightly and the raw flavor cooks out.
Add the broth. Stir in the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Taste and adjust salt.
Add the chicharrones. Add the broken chicharrones to the simmering salsa, pressing them gently into the liquid with a spoon. Reduce heat to medium-low.
Simmer until softened. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the chicharrones have absorbed the salsa and softened to a tender, spongy texture. If the sauce reduces too much, add a splash of broth or water.
Serve. Spoon into bowls and serve immediately with warm corn tortillas.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicharrones en Salsa Verde — Rosa’s Holy Trinity of Cheap, Good, and Filling