September 5, 2012

Carnitas!


Hey guys,

This dish is inspired by all of the Mexican food I grew up with. Now that I'm married and had to move away from my hometown, there has been a gross shortage of really good Mexican food restaurants. So, like I do with most things, I wrote my own recipe for carnitas!

If you are unfamiliar with what carnitas are, they are cubes of some type of pork roast simmered in orange juice until shreddable and the liquid is gone; the meat starts to fry in it's own fat and gets all brown, caramelized, and crispy, yum!


You can use the meat as you like, but some of my favorite uses are burritos, tacos, or just over a fresh green salad!

Here it is:

Ingredients:
  • 2-3 lbs pork tip roast
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 2 tbsp bacon fat
  • 1 tbsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • sea salt and pepper to taste
  • about 4 cups of orange juice
Method:
  1. Dice the pork roast into 1-2 inch cubes.
  2. Saute the onion in the bacon fat in a large heavy bottomed pan until translucent.
  3. Add the pork and the spices.
  4. Add enough of the orange juice to come up 3/4 of the way on the pork and bring to a boil.
  5. Continue to simmer on medium heat, shredding the pork with two forks as it cooks.
  6. Cook until the liquid evaporates, turn the heat up to medium high and fry the pork in the fat until brown and caramelized.
  7. Serve as a burrito filling, taco filling, or however you like!
Until next time!...

8 comments:

  1. Ooooh, this looks *SO* wickedly good! I might have to make this, even though we try to avoid sugars (like the orange juice) as much as possible. :D We've got all sorts of pork in the freezer, and I can't figure out how to cook it! This looks delicious. Would it be good over brown rice? We ought to cut down on our rice intake too, but it's so good with meat dishes that we are very reluctant. :D

    Dolly
    DollyMadisonDesigns.wordpress.com
    DollyMadison.etsy.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Dolly, thanks for your comment! I think it would be delicious over brown rice, but if you'd like to cut down on that, you could try how I ate it and have it on top of a green salad =] also, if you would rather not use the juice, you could just make a Mexican shredded pork using chicken broth instead! good luck!

      Delete
  2. Hi Lindsey,
    I can't wait to make this recipe, the addition of the Orange Juice is going to give this an awesome flavor! Hope you are having a great weekend and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
    Come Back Soon!
    Miz Helen
    A New Follower

    ReplyDelete
  3. This looks amazing...love crispy pork! I've never made it with orange juice before!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! You should definitely give it a try! =]

      Delete
  4. I'm putting this on our menu this week! Thank you! How long does this take from start to finish?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't time it, but probably around 2 hours. Most of the time is spent just simmering the meat on the stove, so there's a lot of down time =] good luck and let me know how it turns out!

      Delete