This recipe gives you all of the taste of a traditional Carne Adovada, but made in a non-traditional way with some surprising ingredients, right in your pressure cooker or instant pot.
Carne Adovada | Pressure Cooker Mexican Pork
Before we begin, I know you’re wondering if I’ve lost my mind, suggesting raisins and fish sauce in Carne Adovada. I use those ingredients to add sweetness and umami to a dish that traditionally calls for a lot of different steps to achieve that flavor.
Now with that out of the way, let’s begin.
I hate doing dishes, and when you cook as much as I have been lately, there are a lot of dishes generated. So I’m always looking for ways to cut down on dish washing.
A lot of this involves single pot cooking, where my Instant pot comes in very handy. But for this dish, I also needed to brown onions and bloom a few spices.
WHAT’S WITH THE MICROWAVE?
I really didn’t feel up to dirtying another pan, but I knew skipping out on browning the onions was not a smart idea.
So I used the microwave. I’m here to tell you, you CAN actually brown onions in the microwave. I chopped up the onions and put them in a paper bowl along with the oil and spices and cooked them, and they browned on their own, with no babysitting, while I cut up the pork.
I think I got a wee bit too much water in this dish because I was afraid to not put enough and burn a 2 pounds of pork, but I think you could get by with less, or you could turn it into a bit of a gravy dish and eat it over rice. I ate it plain so it would be low carb, and that worked well too.
Looking for more great Mexican recipes to check out? Give my Arroz Con Pollo a try! This Mexican chicken and rice dish is sure to make the whole family happy!
Another great Mexican dish is my Rajas con Crema y Elote. It’s a great mix of poblano peppers, onions, and corn, cooked in the Instant Pot that’s absolutely delicious!
THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT TO MAKING A GOOD CARNE ADOVADA
Do not confuse Mexican chile powder with Cayenne pepper. The Mexican version is blended with other spices such as cumin and other things. It’s a rich flavor, but it’s not pure heat like cayenne pepper will have. Even so, this is a richly-spiced dish, but try not to make it inedible by using the wrong kind of chili powder.
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Ingredients
- 1 ounce (28.35 g) Raisins
- 2 pounds (907.18 g) Boneless Pork Shoulder, cut into large pieces
- 1/4 cup (58 g) Fish Sauce
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) Oil
- 1 cup (14 g) Red Onion, chopped
- 3 cloves (3 cloves ) Garlic, chopped
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) Salt
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) Dried Oregano
- 1 tablespoon (1 tablespoon) Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) Ancho chili powder
- 1 can (1 can) Chipotle Chile in Adobo Sauce
- 1/4 cup (0.03 g) Mexican Red Chili Powder, (NOT Cayenne, look for ones that have other spices blended)
- 1/2-3/4 (0.5 ) Water
- 1/2 teaspoon (1 tablespoon) Xanthan Gum, (or use a corn starch slurry)
Instructions
- Place raisins into your blender jar, and cover with hot water while you get everything else ready.
- Place pork in your Instant Pot.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, combine oil, onions, garlic, salt, oregano, both chili powders, and canned chipotle chili, sauce from chili and cook it on high for 5-7 minutes, stirring once or twice.
- Pour this along with and cider vinegar and soy sauce or fish sauce into your blender jar with the raisins, and purée until smooth.
- Pour this mix onto your pork.
- Use the 1/2 cup of water to wash out your blender jar and pour this into the pot as well. Add another 1/4 cup water if you need to.
- Set your electric cooker on High Pressure for 20 minutes, and quickly release pressure when done.
- If you have too much liquid, either set your pot on sauté for 5-10 minutes to let some of it evaporate, sprinkle with xanthum gum to thicken while sautéeing, or make a slurry by mixing the cornstarch and the water, and pour into the pot. Let it boil and thicken.
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Nutrition
A
This isn’t Carne Adovada. I’m sure it’s good but this isn’t remotely close to Carne Adovada.
URVASHI PITRE
Honestly I no longer debate these issues. There’s more than one wAy to make or name a dish. Some people agree with you, some people agree with me. At the end of the day If it tastes good and is a reliable recipe perhaps that’s good enough for all of us.
JAn Eves
Yummy, easy to prepare. Makes emu for leftovers on my family of two.
Diane
I made this for dinner last night and was very impressed! The flavors are well developed and complex. Delicious! Thanks for the wonderful recipe.
URVASHI PITRE
Thank you for letting me know! Glad It worked out.
kerriberri
No disrespect at all but this is more like Chile Colorado that you would commonly find at Mexican restaurants.
Carne Adovada is a uniquely traditional New Mexican dish, not a Mexican dish (there IS a difference between Mexican and New Mexican cuisine) that is marinated for 24hrs before cooking. They taste different, though they appear similar. The sauce for carne adovada is simple and is made from 7-8 dried red chile pods, 2 cloves garlic, 1tsp oregano, and 1tsp salt…sometimes a small amount of cumin or onion is added. You blend this with enough hot water to make 1 pt. Then you add it to cut-in-chunks boneless pork butt or shoulder, and let it marinate for 24hrs. Traditionally it is cooked in the oven (@350 for 1hr) but is easily adapted for pressure cooking.
Nelson Capkoh
KerriBerri has it right. To clarify there are 3 somewhat similar dishes.
Carne Adovada – from New Mexico. Kerri has already written out a simple recipe above. ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT New Mexico chili peppers. I’ve been around the world (30+ countries) and never found an acceptable substitute. It’s not soupy but thick, thick, thick.
Carne Adobada – scores of variations exist across Latin America. In Mexico it sometimes overlaps with Al Pastor in terms of what people are describing. (I think that’s wrong since Al Pastor has to be cooked on a trompo to be authentic in my opinion). Most of the Mexican variations of adoBada use guajillo or chipotle chiles for the marinade and include vinegar which makes it different from the New Mexican adoVada.
(There’s also Filipino adobo but that’s another story.)
Chile colorado – literally, “chile colored red”. This is what it sounds like. Red chile and spices broken down and cooked and eaten. It can include meat or not. Beef and pork are most common. In the old days, lard often added the only flavor “enhancement” needed.
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This recipe seems to be a kind of mix of the last two. Also, it looks like you may have taken inspiration from Kenji over at Serious Eats. Fish sauce? Raisins? Yeah, he got it very very wrong. Not saying a sweet and spicy pork stew is necessarily a bad thing by itself, but it’s sure not Carne Adovada.
(As an aside, I generally love your recipes. The butter chicken and pumpkin pie pudding are staples at my house. Thanks for all you do.)
URVASHI PITRE
As to whether you need more water, since veggies vary so much from batch to batch, so I try to ensure that there’s enough liquid to kinda cover the pork halfway ish. Not an exact science 🙂 I had lots of sauce with this dish so no harm in starting with 1/4 c of water.
Olivia
I’d like to try this recipe but have a couple of questions first. First, 1/4 cup fish sauce, really? That seems like A LOT of fish sauce. I wouldn’t normally think to exchange fish sauce for soy sauce in equal measure. I’m thinking a tablespoon would be plenty? Second, how do you know if you need to add more water in step six? Thanks! Can’t wait to try it!
URVASHI PITRE
1/4 c is really only 2 tablespoons which is what I used, but there’s no harm in using less. Why don’t you start with less and see how you feel?
Megan shaw
1/4 C is 4 Tablespoons