Chili verde is a slow-cooked stew made with pork shoulder and a green broth of chopped chiles, garlic, pepper, salt, and onions. Variations include tomatillos, tomatoes, and potatoes. It can be eaten alone or wrapped in burritos or tacos. The dish is authentic in its many variations.
Chili verde is a dish originating in Northern Mexico. It is a form of stew, traditionally made with pork shoulder, although other cuts of pork and sometimes chicken may be used as well. There are a number of variations on the basic recipe and purists usually claim their version is ‘authentic’. In fact, like many ethnic dishes, green chile is prepared in a variety of ways in its native country, so it’s safe to say whichever version a person likes is probably quite authentic.
The basis of this stew is slow-cooked meat, which is simmered in broth and a blend of other ingredients until the meat falls apart substantially. Some people eat it by itself, sometimes with tortilla chips or tortilla chips to soak up the liquid. This dish can also be wrapped in burritos or tacos, although this practice is more common in Mexican restaurants in the United States. As the “verde” meaning “green” suggests, the broth used to prepare the dish is green.
At a minimum, green chile stock includes chopped green chiles, often a blend of varieties for added flavor, along with garlic, pepper, salt, and onions. Some cooks also add oregano and cilantro, often ground into a paste so the flavor is distributed evenly throughout the sauce. The heat can be adjusted by playing with the varieties of chiles used and the number included in the dish, and cooks can also reduce the heat by de-seeding the chiles first.
In northern Mexico and the American Southwest, many people also add tomatillos to their green chile, sometimes roasting the fruit to create a deeper, more complex flavor. Other cooks add tomatoes, and some cooks in central and southern Mexico like to toss in potato chunks as well. Either way, lime juice is often squeezed over the stew just before serving to create a tangy flavor.
Some markets, especially those that contain Mexican ingredients, contain a green chile mixture in a can, allowing cooks to mix the mixture with some stock and use it as is. The dish isn’t terribly difficult to make from scratch, however, and using fresh base ingredients can allow cooks to play with flavors and spice levels. If tomatillos, an ingredient some people find critical, aren’t available, cooks may find them canned; they can also use tomatoes instead, with a dash of sugar to cut the acid.
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