Pork in Adobo Sauce

I found the taste of the sauce for this to be a bit more bitter than I was expecting, which may be due to some of my substitutions. However, it tasted fantastic with a little bit of cheese in a tortilla, so I'm sharing anyways! There's plenty of sauce leftover which she suggests freezing and saving for use with shredded meat (or I'm thinking ground beef) in tacos.

I made two changes to the recipe: (1) omitting the pork neck bones for lack of will to try tracking them down and (2) substituting vegetable oil for lard. The original is included below.

One year ago: Pasta with Roasted Red Peppers and Basil

Pork in Adobo Sauce (from The Essential Cuisines of Mexico)

Ingredients
1.5 - 1.8kg stewing pork with some fat, cut into 1 1/2" cubes
450g pork neck bones
1/2 white onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves
8 peppercorns
1 tbsp salt
Adobo Sauce
6 ancho chiles, seeds and veins removed
10 pasilla chiles, seeds and veins removed
1" piece of cinnamon stick, crushed
5 whole cloves, crushed
6 peppercorns, crushed
6 sprigs fresh thyme or 1/4 tsp dried
6 sprigs fresh marjoram or 1/4 tsp dried
1/4 tsp cumin seeds, crushed
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbsp mild white vinegar
Final Stage
1/4 cup lard
2 Mexican bay leaves
2 tbsp sugar
3 cups reserved meat broth
salt to taste
2 cups thinly sliced white onion

1. Put meat, bones, onion, garlic, peppercorns, and salt into a large saucepan and barely cover with water. Bring meat to a boil, lower heat and simmer until just tender, about 35 minutes. Let meat cool in broth.
2. Meanwhile, toast chiles lightly. Cover with hot water and soak about 10 minutes.
3. Transfer chiles to blender with 1 cup of water. Add rest of adobo ingredients and blend to a fairly smooth texture.
4. Drain meat, reserving broth and set aside.
5. Melt lard in a large casserole. Add adobo sauce, bay leaves, and sugar and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring to avoid sticking until the sauce becomes a very dark red and thickens so it will barely slide off a spoon.
6. Gradually stir in broth and add salt as necessary.
7. Add meat and continue cooking the adobo sauce over low heat for another 10 minutes.
8. Serve topped with onion rings.