Al pastor enchiladas, no spit required

Name: Al pastor enchiladas, no spit required
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: 1 lb ground pork; 1 tsp garlic powder; 1 tsp chili powder; 1 tsp ground cumin; 1 tsp dried oregano; 5 oz baby spinach; 1 × 16 oz jar salsa verde (the runny shelf-stable kind, not the thick refrigerated one); ½ cup crushed pineapple; 6 flour tortillas, 10-inch; 2 cups pepper jack, coarsely grated; pickled red onion, avocado, cilantro and hot sauce, to serve; salt

Al pastor is pork marinated in pineapple and turned on a vertical spit. This is ground pork, a can of pineapple, and a Wednesday.

At a Glance

Time

45 min

Adjust servings

Story

Buy the runny salsa verde from the shelf-stable aisle rather than the thick refrigerated kind. Half of it goes into the filling and half over the top, and the thin one soaks down through the tortillas as it bakes so the whole dish sets into one thing. The thick sort sits on the surface and browns while the enchiladas underneath stay dry.

Ingredients

1 lb ground pork
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
5 oz baby spinach
1 × 16 oz jar salsa verdethe runny shelf-stable kind, not the thick refrigerated one
½ cup crushed pineapple
6 flour tortillas10-inch
2 cups pepper jackcoarsely grated
pickled red onionavocado, cilantro and hot sauce, to serve
salt

Method

Caroline Chambers wanted tacos al pastor on a Wednesday and was not about to build a vertical spit to get them. The pineapple is doing the same job here it does there, which is cutting fat with acid and sugar.

Heat the oven to 400°F.
Set a 12-inch ovenproof skillet on medium-high and let it get hot. Pork in, broken into tiny crumbles, until barely any pink remains, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, oregano and 1 teaspoon of salt, then the spinach, tearing it as you add it, another minute or two.
Add ½ cup of the salsa verde and the pineapple and cook 1 to 2 minutes, until the meat has taken up the sauce. Off the heat.
Lay the tortillas out and spoon about ½ cup of filling down the center of each. Top each with about 2 tablespoons of the cheese, roll them up and line them along the cutting board.
Pour ½ cup of the salsa verde into the empty skillet and spread it across the bottom. Lay the enchiladas in seam side down, wedging one more in along the top if they will fit. The rest of the salsa over them, then the rest of the cheese.
Bake 15 minutes, until the cheese has entirely gone. Pickled onion, avocado, cilantro and hot sauce at the table.