The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

The Pork
Red chili is all about beef, but with green chili, pork is king.
I tried a few different cuts, including sirloin, belly, country-
style ribs, and shoulder. The shoulder and sirloin fared the
best, maintaining moisture and favor throughout the
cooking. The belly was simply too fatty, and while parts of
the ribs were great, other sections cut nearer to the lean loin
of the pig were much too dry. Pork shoulder requires a bit
more work than sirloin to get ready for stewing (boning,
trimming away excess fat), but it’s significantly cheaper,
which gives it an edge in my book.
In my previous chili experiments, I’d found that browning
small pieces of meat is a very inefficient method, and that
it’s much better to brown whole cuts and cut them up