(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] So the first component of the carnitas
conversation is pork, specifically pork shoulder or butts,
which for some reason are one and the same.
I got about four pounds of nice fatty pork shoulder
that I'm gonna cut into two inch pieces,
seasoning generously with kosher salt, tossing to combine
and letting sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
Just general best practice with stew meat.
Then over on the stove top, in a large Dutch oven,
we're depositing an astounding two pounds of lard,
combining that with the juice
and subsequently squeezed carcasses of one orange.
In this case, I have a cara cara orange
but you can follow your heart
and use whatever orange suits your fancy.
A half a yellow onion peeled and itself cut in half,
the contents of one 12 ounce bottle of Coca-Cola,
preferably Mexican Coca-Cola as it's made with cane sugar,
Unlike the US version,
which opts for the state mandated high fructose corn syrup.
Then I got four peeled cloves of garlic, optionally crushed,
two to four bay leaves depending
on how much bay leaf you like.
One teaspoon of toasted cumin seeds
and one tablespoon of dried oregano.
Cover this guy up, crank on the heat
and bring 'em to a joyful simmer.
At which point we're gonna drop in
all of our waiting porky pieces,
giving things a cursory stir to make sure
that everybody's well coated in fat,
trying to get the pork as submerged as possible,
bringing the mixture back up to a bare simmer.
And now normally you would carefully
cook this thing on the stove top,
but we are parting with tradition
by braising in a 300 degree Fahrenheit oven,
uncovered for one and a half hours,
removing every 30 minutes both to admire
and to give it a stir.
Then after the first hour and a half of cook time,
we're adding one five ounce can of evaporated milk,
starting to make sure that it's evenly distributed
and returning to the oven for another hour and a half
until the pork is completely tender
and everyone in your kitchen,
in your home and on your city block
can smell the greatness emanating from your oven.
Now at this point, you can shred
and prepare the carnitas as desired,
but I like to let these guys chill overnight.
This both allows the flavors to meld,
and prevents too much juice and gelatin
from being squeezed out of the pork
by shredding it when it's still hot.
So evacuate all the pieces onto a rimmed baking sheet.
Be sure to hang on to some of this cooking fat.
It's completely delicious.
It's gonna come in handy.
And if you don't believe me, try frying some eggs in it.
Also, be sure to generously bathe the pork
in its own cooking liquid before leaving it out
to cool to room temperature about one hour.
Then we're wrapping in plastic wrap
and refrigerating overnight.
The next day and it's time to shred.
You can do this with two forks or two spoons,
or two novelty wolverine claws or two hands.
Maybe dumping it onto a slightly larger tray
as pork seems to expand when shredded,
then you can pan fry this stuff in batches,
ideally in that reserve pork fat.
Or you can throw it under a medium broiler
for about 10 minutes until it's brown and crisp
and ready to become a top tier taco.
Season one more time with salt before serving.
And for that, here are a few options.
We've got some corn tortillas that have heated up
in a dry cast iron pan
and kept warm in a clean kitchen towel,
loaded up with carnitas topped with diced onions
and gesturally cilantro.
Serve with sliced limes and you've got yourself
a simple unadmittable, classic.
Crispy, juicy, impossibly flavorful carnitas
taking front and center stage.
But this primo pork can play any number of roles
in any number of game day or non-game day snacks.
One of my favorites, being flautas or taquitos.
First, we're toasting or microwaving
small corn tortillas to make them flexible.
Chopping up a thin line of carnitas
and rolling them into the tortilla,
rolling them tight and keeping them seam side down
so as they do not unravel.
Rinse and repeat as many times as your schedule allows.
And then we're headed over to the stove top
where we have about a quarter inch
of neutral flavored oil, like vegetable or canola,
preheated in a heavy duty cast iron pan.
Carefully add the flautas and press them seam side down
into the oil to seal them shut.
Let them fry for about a minute
or until they're turning golden brown.
Give 'em a flip and continue cooking
until they're golden brown and crisp all over.
Drain on paper towels and hit 'em with a little bit
of kosher salt while they're still hot.
Now, to top these guys up,
ideally we want to drizzle them with crema,
the Honduran cultured sour cream,
but it's a little bit hard to find
so you can approximate it by whisking together
lime juice and sour cream until it reaches
a drizzleable consistency.
Stack these guys up on some pointless leaves of lettuce,
some diced onion, a whole lot of crema
or crema approximation,
some crumbled cotilla cheese, and of course cilantro.
Nice big leaves so that people like me
who don't like cilantro can pick 'em off.
And there you have it, carnitas taquitos.
carnitos or caritas flautas or carnitas.
That one didn't work.
So you made tacos and flautas for your guests,
but now you're alone.
It's late at night, you're probably stoned
and you still have all these carnitas kicking about
and you don't want 'em to go bad, do you?
Sounds like it's time to whip up some carnitas nachos.
I like to start with a layer of just chips and cheese,
followed by chips and cheese, followed by the carnitas,
so that the chips are insulated by cheese, then more cheese.
Then this guy's headed into a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven
for some amount of minutes until the cheese is melted
and the carnitas are sizzling.
At this point you can add all the not hots,
radishes, cotilla, peppers, pico and guacamole in my case.
And there you have it, caritas nachos or car-nachos.
But in the very unlikely event that you make all these
and you still have leftover caritas,
in what ways can we start to bend the rules a little bit?
How about some carnitas cubanos, pull apart party style.
For this, I have some King's Hawaiian slider rolls,
which I'm gonna brush down with melted butter cut side up
because I'm gonna do something (censored) insane.
I'm gonna build these little sandwiches inside out
so they have a nice flat surface
on which they can be toasted.
So first I'm putting down the slider tops,
cut side down then cutting off their tops.
I'm glad that there's a visual aid here,
otherwise this would make no sense.
I'm doing this just so there isn't too much crust
inside my sandwich, which is a new sentence.
Then I'm shingling down some black forest ham,
laying down a generous pile of our carnitas
as a stand-in for the moho pork.
Dotting that with pickle chips
from the world's smallest container of pickle chips
and then shingling several slices of Swiss cheese.
Give that a stylish squirt of mustard,
Top that up once again, confoundingly upside down.
Grab another rimmed baking sheet
that I have preheated in a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven.
Press it down on the buttered surface
with a satisfying sizzle,
and weigh everything down with something heavy
and oven safe like a cast iron pan.
Toast for five to seven minutes before removing the top pans
and continuing to toast until heated through and melty.
And there you have it, near instant cubanos for a crowd.
Obviously carnitas are not moho pork
but I've certainly had less authentic cubanos
claiming to be the legitimate article,
and it's pretty hard to argue with the flavor.
And how do you do that anyway?
How do you argue with the flavor?
You don't.
You just shove the whole sandwich in your mouth,
swallow it like a snake, and go on about your day
like you didn't just gleefully eat a pound of carnitas.
(gentle music)