Well, friends. It’s been a long offseason. We can’t necessarily say it was quiet though. There were plenty of stories to keep us engaged and entertained. The ever-looming threat of playoff changes, a game that was supposed to be in Brazil but is now back in the US, questionable eligibility situations across multiple teams…we definitely had our plates full of takes and discourse. But that’s all over now. (Author’s note: It’s not all over. It’s never all over.) Now we can focus on the things that matter: scores being settled on the field, longest punts, and seeing your social media feed fill with everybody chanting “DOINK” as though we’re a cult summoning an eldritch being of unspeakable horrors.
Even more important than the games being played, we as a country get to take part in the time-honored tradition of tailgating. I believe this is our greatest export to the world, as we graciously showed our international brothers and sisters the fun during this summer’s World Cup. Everybody loves to hang out in a parking lot or in somebody’s yard; laugh and carouse with friends, family, and people you’ve never met before; and eat copious amounts of food. If you follow me on Bluesky, you already know that I have an affinity for making my tummy “hort” as I often say. I’m a bit of an amateur gastronaut, and part of the fun is lending my talents to the Sickos Committee with a weekly food fusion. Every week, I’ll look at the upcoming games and find a matchup that interests me both visually and flavorfully. I then research the areas of the two teams and try to create a dish that can highlight some of the regional culinary fares of both schools into a fun food mashup.
North Carolina vs TCU - Dublin, Ireland
It’s without a doubt that this had to be the game to start with. I mean, it’s the first game of the Saturday slate. It’s Bill Belichick trying to prove that he can coach a bunch of 18 to 22 year old kids. We still don’t know what’s going on with Michael Lombardi. Plus, it’s in Ireland!
This gave me a lot of cultures and influences to work with. How can I combine Texas and North Carolina and also add an Irish flair to the mix? Well, I know my friends in North Carolina love their barbecue, especially pork. I’m not trying to discredit Texas. I know barbecue is big in the Lone Star State as well, but they also have TexMex that I can draw from too. After a few days of thinking this over, I decided that we could do pulled pork enchiladas with a Guinness mole sauce.
Pulled Pork Enchiladas with Guinness Mole Sauce
Pulled Pork
I started with a bone-in pork shoulder that I scored the fat cap to create more surface area for the rub and smoke to touch and flavor. The rub itself was a fairly simple recipe:
My homemade SPG mix (Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder - my blend is a 1:1:1 ratio)
Paprika
Brown Sugar
I use the SPG on almost everything I smoke…beef, chicken, pork…it works everywhere. The paprika and the brown sugar add a little bit of flavor but are also to help with color and bark creation. One thing to note, I don’t have any measurements for the rub. I just use whatever my heart desires until all sides of the meat are covered and everything looks right. I’m a big fan of dry brining my thicker cuts of meat, to give the salt a chance to penetrate into the muscle fibers. After covering the pork shoulder with the rub, I let it sit in my fridge until I was ready to smoke it the next day.
When it came time to smoke, I preheated my grill to 250 degrees Fahrenheit and got ready for a long cook. A good rule of thumb for a pork shoulder is 1-1.5 hours per pound. This was roughly an 8 lb cut, so I was planning about 10 or 12 hours of cook time. Everybody’s grill is different, just like every pig is different, so your mileage may vary. You’re looking for an internal temperature of about 203 degrees Fahrenheit, and you want your thermometer to be able to slide in and out of the pork easily with little to no resistance. After I pull it off, I like to let it sit in a cooler for a few hours to give it time to rest and reabsorb any juices that might leak out. When you’re ready, it’s time to pull the meat, which then can be used for anything you want: sandwiches, salads, or in my case…enchiladas.
Guinness Mole Sauce
I really love mole sauce. Pueblo and Oaxaca, Mexico, are the most popular regions for this sauce, but we’re allowed to take some creative liberties and bring it up north. There are so many different ways to make it too. It seems like every family has their own recipe! All the moles I’ve had have such a deep, rich taste with notes of chocolate and nuts, I just knew that it would lend itself well to being paired with a dark stout beer like Guinness. They can be a labor of love, however. Some recipes call for the sauce to simmer all day to reduce, but I was able to whip up a quick one in only 30 minutes or so! For this cause, you need:
Ingredients:
4 mild dried peppers (I used Ancho because that’s what was at the store)
12oz Guinness
½ cup pitted prunes
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup beef stock
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp slivered onions
1 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp unsweetened chocolate
Instructions
Remove the seeds and tops from the dried peppers. Toast them in a skillet until they start to puff up, and then soak them in hot water for about 10 minutes. Discard the water and add the peppers to a sauce pan
Add the Guinness, prunes, cinnamon, beef stock, brown sugar, chili powder, almonds, and chocolate and bring to a boil
Lower the heat and simmer until the liquid reduces by half. About 12 minutes or so.
Remove from heat, discard the cinnamon stick, and blend the mole with an immersion blender
Add salt and vinegar and stir to combine
This is just an odd shopping list of things and it makes a wonderful dish
HOLY MOLE (you see it’s pronounced molay)
Enchiladas
Take a scoop of the mole sauce and spread it across the bottom of a glass baking dish.
Assemble enchiladas by taking some of the pulled pork and add to a tortilla.
Add some freshly grated Irish cheese (I used Dubliner) to the tortilla and wrap it up, sealing both ends. Place the enchilada in the baking pan.
After filling the pan, pour over the remaining mole sauce ensuring good coverage.
Bake in an oven preheated to 350F for about 20-30 minutes, until the enchiladas are hot
Top with toasted sesame seeds and green onion and serve on a bed of red skin potatoes
I am hungry now
Overall I was very pleased with this dish. Having been a competition BBQ judge, I’ll admit that pulled pork isn’t my favorite BBQ meat, but it worked here. The mild flavor of the pork really let the mole shine. To enhance this even further, I could have opted to crisp up the pork in the oven to make them more like carnitas, though then it’d be hard to justify the “North Carolina” portion of this dish. So it’s fine as is. The chocolate and fruit of the sauce mixed well with the pork’s smoke and were balanced with the nutty flavors in the Dubliner cheese. Everything was well balanced, and there were no strong competing flavors. Honestly, my biggest issue was with the side of potatoes. Due to a lack of oven space, I opted to pan-fry the potatoes, but they didn’t cook as well as I was hoping. Roasting them in the oven would have been the better decision, and if I were to do this again, I’d make sure to make time for that.
Overall, I give this dish a respectable 4.5 out of 5 Corns!
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