🌮 Pork Street Tacos 🌮 | Chef Tom X All Things Barbecue | #tacotuesday

Hey everybody, I'm Chef Tom with atbbq.com and this is Pork Street Tacos. Happy Taco Tuesday, but if I'm being honest, every day's a taco day around here and today we're doing Pork Street Tacos. We're using some thin-sliced pork butt or pork shoulder that we're gonna cook really fast on the yoder. We'll start by mixing up this marinade. It's kind of a brine bath marinade. It's a mixture of acid and salt and of course, chipotle and ancho flavors. One bottle's gonna give you about 10 cups worth of water, two cups worth of bath, and then just kind of top that off. And the great thing about this is you don't have to heat it up or anything. Just give it a stir, make sure it's all mixed together. Pretty much any of your local Mexican markets are gonna have this cut. It's just thin-cut pork butt. It's got the shoulder blade in there. We'll take care of that later. But we're just gonna dip this in here and the great thing about this being cut so thin is one, it marinates super fast, and two, it cooks super fast. Get about two pounds of that fully submerged now. We'll throw the lid on and let this sit for about half an hour. Pulling our pork out of the bath now. We're just gonna throw these down on some paper towels so we can take off some of that excess moisture. After 30 minutes, this should have plenty of flavor, but don't be afraid to leave it in there for an hour. So just a quick pat down, that'll be plenty. We still want a little bit of moisture there to help this rub stick to it. Today we're using the Cattleman's Grill Mexicano seasoning. You don't have to go super heavy because there is salt in that bath. So just get a thin layer on there and kinda rub it around. So this is gonna add some of that cumin flavor, some chili flavor, a little bit of salt as well. Today we're doing some direct grilling on the Yoder Smokers YS640S Pellet Grill. It's running at 450 degrees with hickory pellets. So these are gonna go directly onto the grill grates. Because we're cooking at such high temperatures, there's no need to close the lid. High temperatures and thin meat, I should say, because this is gonna cook through pretty easily. We're really just looking to kinda render out some of the fat and get some char on the outside. Now off to the right side, I've got a cast iron griddle that's been preheating. I'm gonna hit it with a little bit of duck fat and we'll warm up our tortillas. These are fresh from the Mexican market this morning, so I know they're gonna be good. We're not looking to get these crispy, just looking to get a little color on them and cook out that rawness. A little bit more duck fat. Now let's go ahead and flip our pork steaks. Start in the back here, nice grill marks. So the thing is, it's pretty difficult to overcook these because they're pork butts. Normally we cook them to 205, 210 anyway. So we want them to get tender. In fact, we want them to go well past well done, but we also wanna get some color on there and try to render out some of that fat. And there's no rule about flipping these only one time or how many times you can flip them. Just get the color you want on them, let them cook. All right, so we got a little bit of flexibility in here, a little bit of crisp, which is fine. We're gonna steam these, so they're not gonna stay crunchy or dry out. I like to just put them in a bowl with a hot, wet paper towel and close it and keep all that steam in there. Really seeing the fat render out now. In fact, you'll probably see a little flare up if we kind of bounce those around. But mainly we're looking for that char, that color. These are definitely past well done, which means they're starting to break down. And once we chop them up, they'll be nice and tender. And while that pork's kind of cooling down, we're gonna throw in some Mexican crema and a little bit of hot sauce to put on top of these tacos. We're using the Smokin' Ghost today, which kind of has a Chipotle-type flavor to it. It's smoky. It's got a little heat to it, so you're just gonna wanna do this to taste. I'm gonna add about a tablespoon today. So now we've just spiced up the thing that's supposed to cool things down. As far as breaking down the pork goes, we're just gonna take this off of that blade bone that's in the middle there and then chop it finely. And by cutting this smaller, it shortens all of the meat fibers, so even if it's not super tender, it's going to have the mouthfeel of being tender. We're gonna finish this off with some lime juice now so we get some acidity in with all of that fat and that savory, salty flavor. Take the juice of one lime, squeeze it over the top, and then toss it all together. Well, let's build some tacos. Just line these out so we can kind of go down the line. Load them up with our pork. I love that smell of a corn tortilla when it actually smells like corn. And we're gonna hit them with some white onion. You guys can cook your onions if you like. I love a griddled onion, but in true street taco fashion, we're gonna go with the raw ones, which is great. It's a great crunch, great bite. Then we're gonna hit everything with a little bit of cilantro and a little bit of cotija cheese. We'll finish it all off with our crema. All right, let's give it a taste. Before I do that, I'm gonna put a little bit of salsa on here. I'm not gonna presume everyone wants it, so we'll just serve it on the side with some of our Marty's Chili Verde. I'm a taco man. A taco man, if you will. It's fantastic. It's savory. It's got just the right amount of char on it. I like the tanginess. We're getting that from the salsa. And the lime juice on it. Got the right amount of creaminess to it, the right amount of saltiness to it, and the onion crunch is fantastic. Thank you guys so much for watching. Be sure to check out atbbq.com for all the products featured in today's video. If you enjoy the recipe, hit that subscribe button, and if you have any questions or comments, or there's anything you'd like to see me cook, let me know in the comments section down below, and let's be good to one another. For more recipes, tips, and techniques, head over to atbbq.com slash the sauce. All Things Barbecue, where barbecue legends are made.