Slow and easy: Hamby family’s chalupa recipe well worth wait

Rachel Hamby got the recipe from her mom who got it from an aunt who got it from a newspaper about 40 years ago.

Aunt Lynne Avers had been visiting family in Salt Lake City from her home in Albuquerque in the late 1970s when she shared the dish. Hamby was 8 or 9 years old.

The slow-cooked chalupa, served with corn chips and all kinds of accoutrements – green onion, salsa, sour cream, grated cheeses, cilantro, tomato, avocado, shredded lettuce – was an instant hit.

It became a family specialty – the dish that was always served on Christmas Eve, on birthdays and other special occasions.

“It’s great for entertaining because it feeds a lot of people,” said Hamby, now 46. “It’s a go-to, crowd-pleasing recipe.”

It’s also time-consuming; the pork loin takes six hours to cook. But it’s fairly simple to prepare.

“You don’t have to brown the roast or anything,” Hamby said. “You just kind of plonk it in the pan.”

The meat cooks with pinto beans – soaked overnight, then rinsed – on the stove top for five hours, filling the kitchen with the scent of warming spices. Then, it’s removed from the pot, shredded and returned to the mixture of beans and cooking liquid for another hour of simmering.

Hamby, who’s lived in Spokane for six years, uses a 7-quart Dutch oven and just enough water to cover the beans – 4 or 5 cups.

At some point, her mom added onion. But Hamby, who writes poetry and fiction for children’s publications and is working on a book, doesn’t like onion in the dish. So she leaves it out, noting, “We never saw the original newspaper recipe.”

She keeps her handwritten copy on a 3-by-5 card after getting the recipe when she was in her early 20s from her mom. Cheryl Funston of Salt Lake City made the dish until she died in 2011. Avers, the aunt who introduced them all to the recipe, is gone, too.

These days, “If anyone makes it, they take a picture and put it on Facebook,” Hamby said. “It’s a total family memory. It just reminds us of family.”

Her brother in San Diego makes the dish. So does her sister in Salt Lake City. A cousin in Portland makes it, too, along with two more cousins and Hamby’s adult daughter in Seattle.

Her son, a recent graduate from Lewis and Clark High School, doesn’t cook the dish – yet – but he eats it. Hamby was planning to freeze and pack several servings for him to reheat in a Dutch oven over the fire on a camping trip at Priest Lake with friends.

A Mexican dish – it hails from the south-central states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla – chalupa is traditionally served on tostadas, flat or bowl-shaped deep-fried or toasted corn tortillas. Hamby generally uses round corn chips. She also uses her mom’s brightly colored Fiestaware.

“My mom collected Fiestaware,” Hamby said. “She probably started that just to serve chalupa. She loved dishes.”

Hamby usually sets out all the fixings and lets guests dress their own plates, piling shredded pork and beans atop the corn chips, followed by toppings of choice.

Usually cheese goes next – it melts more easily directly atop the meat – but the order is up for debate.

“This is when it gets controversial,” Hamby said, “what you want to put on top. It’s kind of like make nachos really.”

Chalupa

From Rachel Hamby

3 pounds boneless pork loin roast

1 pound dry pinto beans, soaked overnight

1 (4-ounce) can diced green chilies

2 cloves minced garlic

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon oregano

4 to 5 cups water, more if needed

Place pork roast into a large pot or Dutch oven. Drain and rinse the pinto beans, then add to pot with roast. Add green chilies, chili powder, cumin, salt and oregano. Add water until the beans are completely covered, about 4 to 5 cups. Bring the water to a boil then turn down the heat to a simmer. Cover and cook on low heat for 5 hours, checking 2 to 3 times to make sure the beans are submerged. Add water if needed.

After 5 hours, remove the pork roast to a cutting board. Shred the meat, discarding any fat. Return the shredded pork back to the pot and stir, mixing with the beans. Keep heat at a simmer and cook uncovered for one additional hour. Add more salt at the end if needed.

For serving: Serve over tortilla chips with your choice of toppings, such as: shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese (cheddar, Monterey Jack, pepper Jack), diced green onion tops, diced avocado, salsa and sour cream.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings