Cueritos

Cueritos refers to a pig skin preparation commonly prepared in Mexican, Venezuelan, and Spanish cuisine. However, this is not the crispy pork rind you’ve seen stocked at the 7-Eleven known as chicarrones. Rather, in their most common form, cueritos are thin strips of uncooked pig skin pickled in vinegar and seasoned with regional flavors. These can be used as garnish beans, tostadas, and tacos. They also star in the iconic Mexican street food known as “tostilocos” in which nacho-flavored tostito chips are topped with cucumber, cueritos, lime juice, Valentina hot sauce, chamoy, tajín seasoning, chile powder, salt and Japanese peanuts encased in a crunchy brown flour shell. Crazy as it sounds, this antojito has addictive properties generally seen only in illicit narcotics. Raw uncured cueritos are combined with mixed pork meat or “maciza” in deep fat fried carnitas to add extra rich, stick-in-your-teeth goodness to your tacos.