Pork in tomato sauce is one of the many traditional dishes of Spanish cuisine that is made throughout the length and breadth of the territory. With a few very cheap ingredients, you can enjoy this dish either at home, or at the bar as an appetizer or tapa, and always, of course, with a good piece of crusty bread to dip in the sauce.
Preparing it is very easy since it basically involves cooking the meat with a decent amount of tomato. The quality of the latter is important though.
It is important to get some very ripe tomatoes or a very good tomato preserve. During cooking, the sauce is concentrated and reduced while it is impregnated with the juices of the meat, giving it that characteristic flavour that is so popular. In addition, this is one of those stews which tastes even better if you let it rest for a whole day.
To accompany it, you can have white rice for example or even a portion of good chips. Other accompaniments that are common, especially when eaten as a main dish, are fried eggs and fried green peppers, which help to fill out the meal.
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BASIC INFO:
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Ingredients for 4 people
800g lean pork meat, chopped
Salt
Ground black pepper
1 large onion
1 Italian green pepper (optional)
4 cloves of garlic
800 g of very ripe natural tomato or canned
4 tablespoons olive oil
150 ml of white wine
1 or 2 bay leaves
parsley (optional)
Sugar (optional)
STEPS:
To prepare this fantastic recipe, we need 800 g of lean pork meat, chopped and ready to cook. However, first, we are going to check it to remove any excess fat that has remained. Generously season with salt and pepper and let it stand while we prepare the vegetables.
Take 1 large onion, peel it and chop it finely. Optionally, in season, we can add 1 Italian pepper. In this case, we remove the stem, open it in half lengthwise and remove the seeds. We chop it very finely. We also need 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped. Finally, we crush 800 g of tomatoes, which can be natural or good quality canned tomatoes. In the first case, we will make sure that they are fully ripe, wash them and remove the stem. To remove the remains of the skins and seeds, pass the tomato through a chinois or fine sieve, pushing with a mortar pestle or with the back of a spoon
Heat a large skillet or pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. When it is very hot, but not smoking, brown the meat over medium-high heat, until browned on all sides. We will do it in two batches because if we put everything in at once the pan will fall in temperature and it will take longer to cook and brown the meat. As the pieces of meat brown, we remove them and put them to one side.
We lower the heat and finish adding the other 3 tablespoons of oil we need. In it we are going to fry the onion with the pepper over medium-low heat, stirring frequently so that it does not burn. We want it to be very poached so we will cook it for about 10 minutes or so.
Once they are very soft and transparent, add the garlic and mix. Let it cook for about 1 minute. At that time, we put the meat back in the pan or pot, along with any of the juices that it may have released, and soak it with 150 ml of white wine, I like to use a Verdejo. Next, we turn up the heat and let it cook so that the alcohol in the wine evaporates. It will take a few minutes.
Cover the meat with the blended tomato. Also add one or two bay leaves, which will give the sauce a very rich flavour. Let it heat up until it starts to bubble. At that moment and before it starts to spit, lower the heat and let it simmer for between 30 and 45 minutes until the tomato has thickened and the meat is tender. To avoid the tomato spitting everywhere, cover the pot with a fine mesh cover, which also allows the sauce to evaporate.
Finally, taste the sauce and rectify with salt and pepper if necessary. We can also add a little finely chopped parsley. Optionally, you can reduce the acidity of the tomato sauce with a little sugar during the cooking stage but check this halfway through. However, if very ripe tomatoes are used and the onion is well poached, it may not be necessary to add any sugar.
Good Luck