Let's cook!
Last night I made some carnitas for a trip I'm making this weekend. I'm going up to Lake Shasta with a big group of ten hungry people, so I needed a lot of food. I'll take the carnitas and make tacos out of it. I doubled the recipe listed below, so that's why such a large pot was necessary. For a typical dinner with 4-6 people, the normal recipe should be more than enough.
Spices: bay leaf, cinnamon sticks, and ground cloves in the mortar. Kosher salt, crushed red pepper, and oregano in the bowls.
Other ingredients: lots of garlic, some orange peel, and diced yellow onions
The meat: 8.5 lbs of bone-in pork shoulder. (Yes, that's a lot of pork.
)
After butchering: The good meat is in 1" cubes in the bowl, the scraps of fat are in the bag, and the bone is on the cutting board. It's easier if you just ask your butcher to take the bone out, but since I was using so much I decided to handle it myself.
Throw it all in a pot and add water to cover. I used a huge enamalized cast iron dutch oven because I was making so much. Normally, I use my smaller one.
Turn the heat up to high and get it to simmer. Then turn the heat down to medium. Let it simmer for about an hour and a half.
Protip: Use a skimmer to clean the gunk and foam off the top when it's simmering.
After an hour and a half of simmering, crank the heat way up and let it boil. Boil off the liquid - this can take about 30-45 minutes. Sometimes if I get impatient I'll just pull a few cups of liquid out with a cup.
It's getting close - the liquid level is getting lower and the meat is starting to fall apart. Once all the liquid is gone, fry it on the bottom of the pan for a few minutes, but be careful to not burn it too much. A little browning is nice, though.
Finished! Notice how the meat has all broken down.
Pack it up into tupperware and put it in the fridge for the weekend. This keeps for a while in the fridge (1-2 weeks) or even longer in the freezer. It reheats very well. I usually just put it in a pan and fry up what I need. (Obviously it's better fresh right after you cook it, but that wasn't an option for me this time around.)
Cleanup time. I wonder if my roommate will wash it the Le Creuset if I leave it in the sink long enough....
This weekend, I'll just quickly reheat the carnitas in a pan, and then put it in a corn tortilla with some diced onions, chopped cilantro, and some hot sauce. We'll have beans on the side and some margaritas and beer. Yum! Hope you all enjoyed my first contribution. It's a surprisingly easy recipe - just takes a fair amount of time on the stove. The results are always worth the wait, though.
The recipe, courtesy of the
San Francisco Chronicle (<-- check the link for the recipe) food section. For a good accompaniment, make the "Glorified Frijoles" recipe that's listed later in that article. Those are great, too!
Tacos de carnitas
Packaged tortillas are fine, but even better are freshly made corn tortillas. Try Latino markets, farmers' markets or some branches of Mollie Stone's.
INGREDIENTS
4 1/2 pounds pork butt
6 cups water
7 strips orange zest
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 onions, diced
1 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/2 cinnamon sticks, preferably Mexican (see Note)
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons oregano leaves, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt + salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Finely chopped onion
Chopped cilantro
Fresh salsa verde or hot sauce
24 small corn tortillas, warmed
INSTRUCTIONS
Chop thick fat from the outside of the pork butt. Cut the meat into 1-inch cubes. Discard any cubes that are pure fat, but don't try to trim all of the fat out of the meat.
Add the pork with the water, orange rind, garlic, onion, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, bay leaves, oregano, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and cloves to a large pot. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Skim any scum that forms on the surface. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours, until very soft, adding more water if necessary to keep the meat submerged.
Season with salt. Bring to a gentle boil and cook until the water has evaporated, about 30 minutes. Cook a little longer to fry the meat slightly. Watch carefully to prevent burning.
Remove the bay leaves and cinnamon sticks. Place in a fine strainer and push gently with a wooden spoon to remove any excess fat. Discard the fat.
Fold a few tablespoons of carnitas inside each tortilla and top each taco with cilantro, onion and salsa. Serve immediately.
