Max is a photographer, musician and the editor of cult publication Doing Bird, and father to our three children. Let’s just say he’s busy! Most days he’s on location shooting and the food he’s eating is not always the healthiest. So when he comes home, his focus is on healthy eating, and because I love him I do my best to oblige. He’s quite handy in the kitchen himself, but to be honest, what we’re eating for dinner is not always in the forefront of our minds after feeding the three kids.
Max’s only rule is he won’t eat gluten. He’s big on drinking broth, apple cider vinegar or lemon in water, cooking meats slowly and having lots of salad and cooked veg. He’s not fussy like me, he’s happy with whatever he gets, as long as it falls within those guidelines.
Max’s dinners, like mine, are often thrown together from dinners cooked for the kids. In this case I had slow cooked a shoulder of pastured pork overnight (my friend Daniella’s recipe), and on this particular night I just happened to have leftover shredded lettuce from Frankie’s dinner, as well as some leftover avocado and soaked rice from Wilco’s dinner. The result – the best ever pork tacos!
INGREDIENTS
For the slow cooked pork
1 shoulder of pastured pork, trotter still on (approx 1.5kg – 2kg)
2 stalks of celery
2 carrots, peeled
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 head of garlic, sliced through the middle
2 cups of apple cider vinegar
1-2 L of Love and Bones Broth (pork or chicken is best)
For the guacamole
1 ripe avocado, flesh removed into a bowl
1 small eschalot, very finely chopped
1 little red chilli (not the hot ones), very finely chopped
A handful of coriander, roughly chopped
Juice of 1 lime
A heaped tablespoon of Labne
Himalayan sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
For the taco
La Tortilleria soft shell (preservative free taco shells)
Shredded slow cooked pork (recipe below)
Leftover soaked rice (see Wilco’s dinner, link below)
1 pink grapefruit, to be segmented to add a little zing
Shredded lettuce
Guacamole (recipe below)
METHOD
For Daniella’s slow cooked shoulder of pastured pork
I will only eat pork that I know has been treated ethically, otherwise it’s a no go zone for me and my family. My right-hander (I call her The Boss Lady) is the queen of slow cooks and this is one of her recipes to try. We would eat this one night with a side salad and potatoes. The next night we will use it to make the best pork tacos ever! I love a taco, doesn’t everyone!
Place pork shoulder in a large, deep baking tray on a bed of celery, carrots, onion, garlic (roughly chopped) and bay. Pour apple cider vinegar over it.
Cover the whole shoulder with Love and Bones Broth. I use either my chicken or my pork broth, whatever’s unfrozen at the time. Make sure you leave just the crackling/skin exposed. (Or you can make Michelle’s basic broth recipe here.)
Cover with foil and cook in the oven at 80°C for 21 hours, then remove the foil and continue cooking for another three hours at 120°C. Keep an eye on it so the liquid doesn’t all evaporate and the crackling burns.
Note: Leftover pork can be frozen along with the cooking juices/broth in portions to easily defrost.
For the guacamole
Chop the eschalot, chilli and coriander and mix through the avocado. Taste and adjust using lime, labne and seasoning. Set aside in the fridge in a bowl.
For the tacos
Toast the La Tortilleria soft shell preservative free taco and keep warm in a tea towel in a very low oven 50c.
Warm the pork in its broth juice over a low heat till just warm. Warm the soaked rice in a low oven in a covered dish (see recipe here).
Place the rice, shredded lettuce, juicy pork, segmented grapefruit and guacamole in the La Tortilleria shell. Simply wrap, eat and repeat!
Max’s dinner ingredients! Recipe by Michelle Schoeps. Styling – Lucy Feagins. Styling assistant – Nat Turnbull. Photo – Eve Wilson for The Design Files.
Max’s dinner featuring slow cooked pork tacos. Recipe by Michelle Schoeps. Styling – Lucy Feagins. Styling assistant – Nat Turnbull. Photo – Eve Wilson for The Design Files.
Slow cooked pork cooked in Love and Bones Broth and apple cider vinegar, with soaked rice, tacos, shredded lettuce and grapefruit. Recipe by Michelle Schoeps. Styling – Lucy Feagins. Styling assistant – Nat Turnbull. Photo – Eve Wilson for The Design Files.
