Filson Journal:
Pork Chile Verde

project

A recipe written for a high-quality outdoor clothing brand to be featured on their blog 

research

A tone/voice analysis of the Filson brand, an interview with the chef, a message, and some fact-checking

process

Drafted the recipe’s intro, ingredients, and instructions–first for technical and web writing principles, then for brand voice so that Filson need not edit 

introduction

Guisado, or stew, is a staple food on ranches in Chihuahua, Mexico, particularly among my family. In the early 1900s, my great-grandmother would make this pork chile verde recipe on special occasions, like my grandfather’s birthday.

ingredients

  • 8 tomatillos

  • 4 poblano peppers

  • 1½  cups roasted green hatch chile peppers

  • 1 bunch of cilantro

  • 1 white onion

  • 6 garlic cloves

  • 1 quart of chicken stock

  • 1/2 tablespoon of cumin

  • Salt and pepper to taste

  • 2 pounds of small cut pork

  • Half cup cooking oil

  • Tortillas

instructions

  1. Start by peeling the husk from the tomatillos and removing the seeds from the poblano peppers.

  2. Char the tomatillos and peppers, then place them in a blender along with the hatch chiles, garlic cloves, chicken stock, cumin, half a white onion, and half a cilantro bunch.

  3. Blend until smooth and combined.

  4. Dice and combine the rest of the onion and cilantro for the garnish.

  5. Heat a skillet until it begins to smoke lightly, then add the oil and the diced pork.

  6. Season with salt and pepper and cook until the moisture draws out of the meat–a rough 10 to 15 minutes, depending on heat.

  7. Once the moisture has been cooked away, add the chile verde purée to the skillet.

  8. As soon as the purée starts to boil, bring it back to a simmer.

  9. Cover the skillet and cook over low heat for 20 to 25 minutes.

  10. Serve with tortillas toasted on the comal and garnish.

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highlights

prep-friendly instructions

I used the law of adjacency to save the user time by adding step 4 (prepping the onion and cilantro garnish) just after the steps for chopping and blending the vegetables for the sauce.

The idea is to help the user prep in advance by dicing and chopping the garnish while the ingredients are already out and the cutting board has yet to be washed and put away.

Prepping in advance and cleaning as you go are great cooking practices, so the idea was to bake those practices into the instructions.

hindsights

reduce, reduce, reduce

A few steps could be combined to avoid choppiness and reduce the number of listed steps–from a mildly daunting 10 to a mellow 8 or so.