There are few things that we in The Riot Before take more seriously than burritos. If you’ve ever talked to us on tour you’ve more than likely fielded questions about where to get good burritos in your city, and then you probably thought we were dicks when we sighed loudly after you mentioned Moe’s or said something about how great a burrito was, offering up the generous serving size as your only criteria for quality. When it comes to burritos, we’re unapologetic snobs with incredibly high standards. Cory even has a burrito tattoo. That’s a lifelong commitment there. Burritos are just too good of a food, too full of delicious potential, to be tolerated in sub-par form. But if a burrito does meet our qualifications, we’ll love your city forever no matter how lame it may be otherwise (Clemson and Denton, I’m looking at you).

The following burrito is inspired by a taco truck (technically a bus) in Tampa, FL that serves up one of the best burritos I’ve ever had. If you ever are driving south on 275, exit Hillsborough Ave, take a left, and about two blocks down, pull into the parking lot after the Autozone on your right. What’s great about these burritos (aside from the banana leaf smoked pork…amazing!) is what they don’t put in them: rice, beans, and cheese. It took eating a burrito with these ingredients omitted to make me realize how much they mask the flavor of the meat and the salsas. It opened my eyes up to just how light and fresh a burrito can taste. Since then I’ve often kept rice and beans on my plate and stuck with meat, slaw, and salsa in my tortillas.

A few notes about this recipe:

First off, and obviously, this recipe is long and time consuming. These are not Rachel Ray burritos. It normally takes me an entire afternoon to get everything prepped, cooked, and assembled. But the good news is that nothing is really hard to do, it’s all really easy in fact, and the payoff at the end is well worth the effort. This recipe makes enough food for about four or five people. If you don’t have that many people eating, make the whole thing anyway and eat leftovers for a while. I often add the pork and salsa to potatoes and eggs for breakfast burritos in the morning.

The pork and tortillas both call for lard. If possible, try to avoid the hydrogenated stuff you find in the supermarket. Its less tasty and hydrogenated fats are extremely unhealthy. I’m fortunate enough to have a really good butcher by my house that renders their lard from free range pork fat and I highly recommend you look for something similar in your town. Lard is actually better for you than you’d expect (according to my butcher and some brief research) and it tastes amazing. If you can’t find lard, you can always render your own from fat. There are recipes online that can guide you through this and, while I’ve never done it myself, it appears to be pretty simple.

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you can still make these tortillas using hydrogenated vegetable oil, butter, or a butter substitute (I used to make them with Earth Balance). They won’t taste quite as good, but they’re still leaps and bounds better than anything you’ll find in a grocery store, and as an upside you won’t go to hell when you die like us evil, though egregiously sated, omnivores.

Every recipe that follows is good on its own and can be used in a myriad of other foods. I love the green salsa on eggs or served with chips. The pork can be used to make an amazing enchilada, a delicious sandwich, or even a ravioli. I frequently roll out a few tortillas just to eat plain. None of these recipes need to be followed precisely, rather, they’re simply suggestions. Have fun and experiment a little.

Happy feasting!
~ Brett
The Riot Before

Carnitas Ingredients

2lbs pork butt
1 1/2 cups orange juice
zest from 1 orange
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tbsp. ancho chile powder
1 tbsp. chipotle chile powder
4 garlic cloves, peeled
10-15 cilantro stems w/ leaves
2 tbsp. lard
pinch salt

Directions

Cut the pork into 1 inch cubes, leaving the fat on. Place in a large zip top bag. In a mixing bowl combine orange juice, zest, cumin, ancho powder, chipotle powder, garlic, cilantro and salt. Pour into bag with pork and the seal the bag, making sure to get as much air out as possible. Massage the mixture a bit to make sure it’s fully incorporated throughout the pork. Place bag in a clean mixing bowl (just in case the bag leaks) and refrigerate for 1 to 2 days.

Pour contents of bag into a large, heavy bottomed sauce pan or dutch oven. Add water to almost cover the pork. Remove the cilantro. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, cover and reduce to a simmer. Leave the pork covered for about an hour and a half, then uncover, and raise the heat slightly, taking care not to boil the liquid. Continue to cook until nearly all the water has evaporated out. Remove garlic cloves and orange zest. Stir the meat with a wooden spoon vigorously, scraping up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the lard. Continue to stir until the pork have shredded completely and browned a bit (about five minutes). Remove from the heat, move the meat to the side of the pan and add the tequila, again scraping up any browned bits stuck to the bottom (these are delicious), return to the heat and stir for another minute or so.

Flour Tortillas Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup lard
2 tsp salt
1 cup warm water, plus more if needed
1 tsp baking powder (optional)*

Directions Combine the salt and flour in a large mixing bowl. Work the lard into the flour with your fingers, fork, or pastry blender (though fingers work the best) until it begins to look like wet sand. When all the lard is incorporated add the cup of warm water and stir. If needed, continue to add small amounts of warm water until the dough comes together and is just slightly sticky. The trick is to add enough water so that the tortillas aren’t dry and brittle, but not so much that you can’t roll the dough out later. Give it a few batches and you’ll be able to eyeball it pretty well. Once the water has been added, transfer the dough to a floured counter top and knead ten or fifteen times. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes (if you don’t do this the dough will be springy and impossible to roll out, and it also gives the flour time to fully absorb the water).

When the dough is finished resting, heat a large dry skillet over high heat, pull off a chunk of dough and shape it into a one inch ball, then pat it into a small disk. Place this on a floured countertop and slowly roll out into a circle. I’ve found that if you press too hard right away, the tortilla always ends up in the shape of a square, which tastes fine but looks silly. The best method is to gently roll back and forth once, flip the disk over and give it a quarter turn, then roll back and forth again. Repeat this until the tortilla is the size and thickness that you want, keeping in mind the size of your pan and making sure you don’t roll out anything that won’t fit. Place in the hot dry skillet, and cook for about 20-30 seconds per side. Remove, stack on a plate, and cover with a clean towel until it’s time to eat.

*Baking powder will fluff the tortillas up a bit, making them thicker. Personally, I prefer a thin tortilla, so I omit the baking powder. But try it out both ways and go with what you like best.

Green Salsa Ingredients

1lb. tomatillos, husked and washed
About a cup of fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
1/2 white onion, diced
1-2 limes
2 pablano peppers
1-4 jalapenos
2 cloves garlic
1 ripe avocado (optional)

Directions In a large stock pot boil enough water to completely submerge the tomatillos. Carefully place the tomatillos in the boiling water, cover, lower the heat a bit, and leave them alone until they’re really soft, 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile roast the pablanos and jalapenos. If you have a gas grill this is really easy. Just place the peppers over a high flame and burn them completely black on all sides. When fully scorched, place them in bowl and cover with plastic wrap. This allows the heat and moisture from the pepper to make the blackened skin really easy to remove. Leave those alone for ten to fifteen minutes, and then simply rub the skin off with a paper towel. It’s no big deal if you don’t get all the charred skin off, just be as thorough as you can. If you don’t have a gas stove, you can cut the peppers in half, salt them, drizzle some oil on them, and roast them in a 350 degree oven for thirty minutes. This takes a lot longer and it never really works as well as the fire method does, as least for me, but it works nonetheless. And I guess if you’ve never roasted peppers over a gas range you wouldn’t really know the difference, except that I just told you the difference. Sorry about that. Try not to imagine that somewhere out there someone is perfectly roasting peppers over their gas range, with like, no effort at all. Try not to.

Ok, so once all that is done, roughly chop the peppers, and place the pablanos and one jalapeno in a food processor or blender. Jalapenos frequently vary in their level of heat, and so I prefer to start with only one and then add the rest one at a time later. If you don’t like too much spice, remove the seeds and discard, seeds being where most of the heat is located. Keep in mind that it’s a lot easier to make a salsa hotter, but a huge pain to try and cool it down. Now add everything else. I normally reserve a little of each ingredient just so I can adjust the flavor later. This is especially true of limes. I’m pretty sure that no two limes have the same amount of juice inside, and so it’s safest to add the juice from one, then add more later if you think the salsa needs it (it normally does, but occasionally does not). As for the garlic, mince it as fine as you can, then place a pinch of kosher salt on it and repeatedly smash it into a cutting board with the edge of a chef’s knife. The coarseness of the salt with help turn it into a mush. I like mushy garlic in salsa because you never get a chunk of it in one particular bite, but rather just a good garlic flavor hanging out in the background and making everything better. The garlic should be like when you double vocals on a record; best when its presence isn’t obvious. If you make this salsa and your friends taste the garlic, they’ll probably call you a sell out.

It’s time to blend! Blend it like crazy. I personally don’t like this salsa to be chunky. In fact, I normally put it in a plastic bottle and squeeze it onto just about everything edible, so the smoother the better. Once you’ve got it all blended up, give it a taste and adjust the flavor. Try to add just enough salt to make everything the most delicious it can taste without making it taste like salt. This is true for pretty much every dish you’ll ever cook in your life. If you think it needs something, throw some of your reserved ingredients in. If you have no idea whether it needs an adjustment or not, throw in a little of something and see if you like the change. Experiment a bit until you begin to learn how each ingredient effects the flavor. Once you’ve got it just right, put it in the fridge for thirty minutes or so. This will cool it down and also let the flavors really settle into each other. A briefly rested salsa tastes remarkably better (and sometimes a little hotter) than a freshly made one.

Pico De Gallo ingredients

2-3 tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 white onion
1 clove garlic, minced then mashed
1 jalapeno, diced with seeds removed
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
Juice from 1 lime
Salt to taste

Directions

Cut the onion in a large dice and combine in a bowl with the lime juice, mashed garlic, jalapeno, and cilantro. Add the tomatoes to the bowl. Add salt to taste. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed. The salt will draw a lot of water out of the tomatoes, which wouldn’t be a big deal if you were simply using this as a dip for chips, but a watery salsa tends to saturate freshly made tortillas too much, so I like to drain this salsa before using. Also, since this is going in a burrito, I like to keep the pieces a lot larger in order to add texture and an overall fresh taste. Lastly, since the green salsa is adding the heat, it’s a good idea to keep this one mild.

Cabbage slaw Ingredients

4 radishes sliced
1/4 head green or purple cabbage, sliced very thin
1 lime
1/4 cup cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
salt to taste

Directions

Place cabbage, cilantro, and radishes in a mixing bowl, spritz with lime juice, add a pinch of salt, stir, cover, and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so. The real point of including this in the burrito is textural. The cabbage and radishes have a great crunch that I find lacking in the common burrito. Honestly, I think raw cabbage tastes kinda like dirt, but once you slice it really thin and marinate it a bit, the salt, lime, and cilantro overwhelm the soil flavor while leaving the crisp texture. This is the key to making a burrito that doesn’t leave you feeling bloated and a hundred pounds heavier when your done eating.

Assembly This is pretty obvious, just put everything in a tortilla and wrap it up. One thing you want to keep in mind is to not overfill the burrito. This is really easy to do, and it’s a shame because in my mind there is almost nothing as delicious as a homemade tortilla, and an overfilled burrito drowns out the flavor of said tortilla. You want to strive for a good ratio of ingredients so that all of the flavors and textures are balanced and compliment each other. I recommend adding about half as much of everything than you would prefer. After all, you can always make another one.