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Carnitas – simple recipe

Carnitas is usually pork shoulder boiled in a vat of pure lard with coca cola and oranges added, but that’s kind of insane so I have a much more suburban recipe, and the flavors are rich and deep so as long as you serve it with a starch and a simple pickled veggie it’ll be a huge success. My friends have mild tastes so if you want something spicier just add cayenne to the dry rub, I wouldn’t add more than a tablespoon. You could also chop chilies and add them to the shredded meat at the end.

use about half a pork shoulder (an entire one is huge) and place in a big ziploc baggie
chop up 2 cloves of garlic and slice a tangerine in half, squeeze it a bit into the bag and add all of this and then 2 tablespoons of tamari, which is gluten free soy sauce – you should get tamari anyway because it’s super useful for all kinds of recipes
I let this sit for about an hour, then placed it in a strainer over the sink to let the juices run off
then I rubbed the meat in paprika, cumin, salt, pepper, garlic powder and coriander
Instead of salt/pepper/garlic powder I recommend Adobo seasoning, which is cheap and super good, it should be the main seasoning for the meat
I place all of this in an enameled cast iron pot like the one pictured, you want something that can sit in the oven a long time so anything like that works, I’d recommend stainless steel. The temperature will be low so ceramic or granite would also work. I do not fuck with teflon at all
After putting it in the pot I added about a tablespoon of salt and a little less of black pepper
I sliced a large onion in half and placed it beside the pork and added about 3 table spoons of olive oil to the pot along with a bay leaf and a few cloves of garlic.
Preheat often to 275 F
Then I turned on the fire and let all of this brown on one side for about 8 minutes over medium heat
Get something like chicken “better than bullion” or chicken knorr cubes, add about a tablespoon to the pot (I prefer “better than bullion because it’s a paste) and then crack a modelo or similar simple light beer into the pot, I’d add about half a cup of liquid to a full cup but not more. I did not use the whole beer for all the liquid
Let the liquid become warm and then lid and place in the oven for 2 hours
To be honest I broke it up because I had to run out the door in the middle, so it cooked for one hour then sat for an hour and then I cooked it at 275 for about 45 more minutes
When I removed the pot I just used tongs to lightly twist the pork around and it should be totally soft by now
***You can brown the meat beforehand more if you want, but I just wanted something smooth and rich to match my friends’ tastes
Instead of salsa, consider making a criolla the night before – this just involves julienned cucumber, thinly sliced sweet pepper, tomato and onion in white wine vinegar. I made mine with both lime juice and vinegar. Add plenty of salt – I did about 5 tablespoons
the veggie bowl you see there is just campari tomatoes with chopped cucumber in apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper and 2 cloves of raw garlic. No need to let this sit overnight, and you can make it fresher by adding cilantro but the people I was eating with didn’t like cilantro (weak genes)
I wanted a rice pilaf in addition to tortillas, so I made rice, let it cool, then sauteed diced onion in canola oil and added corn, seasoned with adobo and paprika, then added the rice to finish. Instead of adobo, again, you could use garlic powder/salt/pepper

Also on the table you can see a quick guac (avocado mashed with red onion, salt, pepper, lime juice) and extra lime just in case

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