Picante Pork and Potato Stew

1 large piece of pork (trimmed of all fat)
3 large onions, quartered
10 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
10 black peppercorns
3-4 whole garlic cloves (peeled)
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
Assortment of whole, fresh chili peppers of your choice
4-5 medium size new potatoes, quartered (add to crock pot later, per
instructions)

Add cold water to cover all of the above ingredients (except potatoes) in the slow cooker.

Put the whole (unseeded) chili peppers on top. (Any amount and any type of chili peppers are fine, depending on how hot you want the final dish. )

Cover and cook on low setting 3-4 hours.

Remove meat and chili peppers from the slow cooker.

Add quartered potatoes to the cooking broth and cook about 11/2 hours longer. While potatoes are cooking and after the cooked chili peppers and meat have cooled.

Carefully cut off the top of the chili peppers, slit open them and remove seeds. Scrape flesh from the inside and discard the skin. Reserve the chili pepper flesh.

Remove any remaining fat from pork and cut the pork into bite-size pieces. Set aside.

Final assembly: Remove potatoes from cooking broth and strain broth into saucepan. Then:

Reduce the broth to leave just enough liquid to use as stew base(about 2 cups).

From ingredients in strainer, pick out onions and put the onions into food processor.

To food processor add reduced cooking broth, chili pepper flesh, and 1 large clove peeled raw garlic. Puree until smooth.

Heat the pureed sauce in large pan and add the cut-up pork and cooked potatoes.

Add 1-2 TBS white vinegar to finish. (Adjust picanteness by adding more vinegar to taste just before serving. )

Serving: This is a thick stew that is well-suited to be served in your bouillabaisse bowls accompanied by corn tortillas or Gorditas (tortillas made with wheat flour and lard)

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