Pork Belly with mole verde
At Destino restaurant in La Cosecha, a Latin-American marketplace in Washington, D.C., chef Robert Aikens spends three days preparing pork belly. He rubs it in a curing mixture of salt, cumin, coriander, garlic powder, sugar, dried Mexican oregano, cinnamon, bay leaf and arbol chile. Then he coats it in a marinade of ancho, guajillo, chipotle mecca and morita chiles, roasted garlic cloves, cumin, cloves, coriander, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, dried Mexican oregano, cider vinegar, sugar, salt, pineapple and hydrated annatto seeds.
He marinates that overnight and then cooks it in sous-vide at 175 degrees Fahrenheit for eight hours. He cools the bellies overnight on sheet trays lined with parchment paper stacked on top of each other to weigh them down. Then he cooks them in a combi oven set at 100% humidity at 190 degrees Fahrenheit for seven hours, and then stacks and refrigerates them overnight again.
Meanwhile, he makes a green mole by sweating poblano, jalapeño and serrano peppers with onion and garlic in extra virgin olive oil and then adding pumpkin seeds, cashews, tomatillos, epazote, cilantro, thyme, Granny Smith apples, pineapple, golden raisins, plantains, cinnamon, cumin, cloves, coriander, allspice, black pepper, oregano, water, salt and cider vinegar, simmering until tender, blending, passing through a food mill and chilling.
Separately, he blanches spinach and cilantro, purées it and freezes the mixture in ice cube trays.
He makes spiced pumpkin seeds by frying them, tossing them in a spice mix of salt, smoked Spanish paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, coriander, olive oil and hot sauce and letting them dry overnight.
At service he crisps up the pork belly skin in a heavy-bottomed steel pan and glazes the portioned belly with a combination of the achiote marinade mixed with vinegar, verjus, honey, sugar, salt, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, bay leaves and thyme.
He reheats the mole and adds the frozen spinach-cilantro cubes to it to add fresh flavor and bright color. He plates it with the pork belly and drizzles it with pumpkin seed oil and spiced pumpkin seeds. Between the belly and mole he places house-made egg noodles dressed with pumpkin seed oil, salt and some of its pasta water.
“Overall … it is a lot of work to get this one on the table,” he said.
Price: $26