Chef Paolo Peralta grew up in Cuernavaca, the largest city of the state of Morelos, just two hours south of Mexico City. Ironically, Paolo was raised in a family that didn’t often cook. His dad, a professional footballer, had only one rule for Paolo and his two brothers, “play a sport and stay out of trouble”. However, Paolo’s grandmother and aunt both were fantastic cooks and heavily influenced his upbringing. After moving to New York City to cook, Paolo spent years training in traditional Italian and French kitchens, before deciding to return to his Mexican roots, training under Danny Mena at Hecho en Dumbo and Richard Shandoval at Maya. In 2014, Paolo joined the team at Gran Electrica as soon as he “saw the lady pressing tortillas in the kitchen.” Chef Paolo draws inspiration from his childhood memories, of his grandmother and aunt, and the local foods he grew up with, to build his menu driven by seasonal and local ingredients, while also utilizing traditional Mexican ingredients.

Pork Carnitas by Chef Paolo Perlata of Gran Electrica

Download printable .pdf file here.

Ingredients
1 ea. Fossil Farms Berkshire Pork Boston Butt
4 quarts pork or chicken stock to cover the meat
1 ea. yellow onion
3 ea. garlic cloves
1 ea. bay leaf
1 bunch thyme
1 ea. bag good quality, hand pressed corn tortillas

Salsa Verde
10 ea. tomatillos
1 ea. small onion
4 ea. garlic cloves
1⁄2 ea. jalapeño
1 bunch cilantro

Directions
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a deep baking dish, add pork butt and stock with onion, garlic and herbs. Cook in the oven for 4 hours (or until cooked through). Let cool, and remove the pork from the stock. Rough chop into 1⁄4 inch cubes. Reserve 1⁄2 cup cilantro and white onion for garnish and dice small.

Roast salsa verde ingredients in oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. To finish, blend everything together with the cilantro and set aside

To serve, fill tortilla with carnitas and salsa verde, and garnish with chopped onion and cilantro.