Tomatillos, chiles, and avocado, que mas quieres? (What else do you need?)
Herdez’s new Avocado Hot Sauce has turned L.A. TACO into believers. It’s truly the Swiss Army Knife of condiments, able to provide heat, flavor, tang, and a creamy texture to everything from your al pastor pizza to your best quesadilla creations at home. An unlimited source of avocado-based pleasure that never runs out and won’t go funky five minutes after it’s been sitting out. We’re tired of avocados breaking our hearts.
We’ve gone ahead and partnered with Herdez to bring you a series of incredible recipes to use it in. So you can taste the mind-blowing range of Herdez’s Avocado Hot Sauce all on your own.
As with all good things in life, we’ll start with pizza. Welcome your palate back to life.
We’ve been playing with this avocado, tomatillo, and chile-based sauce for a couple of weeks now, putting it on a full range of daily dishes, from our morning eggs to our lunchtime tortas to our early evening tacos, as well as our late evening tacos, too.
But back to the pizza.
For today’s recipe, we’re tapping the pleasures of a pizza topped with al pastor, a dish we’ve increasingly enjoyed in Los Angeles. The union of savory, adobo-rubbed meat with salty cheese, tropical fruit, and fiery squiggles of avocado sauce is astounding.
And with this hot and gooey canvas in place, we will do our best Jackson Pollack impression, freely drizzling Herdez’s Avocado Hot Sauce all over its surface for a silky, rich touch that lends your pie heat and extra flavor.
So, get your ovens and dough-kneading hands warmed up for this one, friends. Here’s how this Pizza Al Pastor recipe is going down. And yes, this time the pineapple on this pizza is not optional.
PIZZA AL PASTOR
(makes two 14” pies)
TO MAKE THE AL PASTOR
1 pound pork shoulder, sliced into 2-inch pieces
1 (14 oz) can pineapple rings, juice and rings separated
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 guajillo chiles, dried, stems and seeds removed
TO MAKE THE PIZZA, YOU’LL NEED:
All-purpose flour, to dust
2 pounds pizza dough (can be bought premade or made fresh by your own hand)
10 ounces crumbled queso fresco
1/2 cup tomatillo salsa
Chopped fresh cilantro
Chopped yellow onion
10 ounces Oaxacan cheese, hand-shredded into strands
Lime wedges, to serve
For the al pastor adobo, blend vinegar, garlic, oregano, pineapple juice, cumin, paprika, salt, black pepper, chiles, and cloves until smooth. Place bite-sized pork cuts into a bowl and fold and cover with the blended mixture, allowing to marinate overnight or for a minimum of four hours.
Pre-heat a skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat. In batches, remove pork from the marinade and grill in batches, browning the meat and cooking through. Separately, grill pineapple rings until the outsides are lightly charred. Once cool, chop pineapple into bite-sized pieces.
Preheat oven to 500ºF, ideally with a pizza stone inside of it. Sprinkle kitchen surface or board with flour and divide pizza dough in half, then roll each dough ball into a 14” circle, dusting liberally with flour as needed.
Transfer dough to a baking sheet or parchment paper for easy removal and top each pizza with 1/4 cup of tomatillo salsa, 5 ounces of queso fresco (retaining some for later topping), Oaxacan cheese, and half of the pork shoulder and pineapple pieces.
Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes, or until the crust turns golden and cheese is spotted with brown marks. Top with a drizzle of Herdez Avocado Hot sauce and however much cilantro, diced onions, lime, and queso fresco you desire.
