Pork shoulder was on sale this week, so I made carnitas.
The first thing I’ll say about this is I’m didn’t make an “authentic” recipe where the pork is fried in lard for several hours. Pork is a fatty meat without the lard, and my preference is braising the meat in juice and water. There’s always leftover carnitas meat, and the added lard congeals unpleasantly when the meat is refrigerated.
Carnitas tacos have become a go-to in taco shops around New York City in recent decades. It’s a style that originated in Mexico, with some people claiming it dates back to the era of conquistadors. Pigs arrived in the Americas during the Columbian exchange, and the fast breeding, easy-to-raise pigs quickly grew into a popular food source.
There’s a legend that an early carnitas taco was invented in 1521 in the town of Coyoacán (now a neighborhood of Mexico City) at a feast celebrating Hernán Cortés where a roasted pig met with local corn tortillas. Cortés is a conquistador, perhaps best known from the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In the opening sequence, young Indiana Jones seeks the Cross of Coronado, a gold and gemstone encrusted crucifix handed off by Cortés to Coronado. Coronado promptly loses this treasure, where it’s unearthed just in time for young Indiana to save it from the treasure hunters. It belongs in a museum, after all.
So anyway, that’s two Hernán Cortés fables. There’s no cross of Coronado, and carnitas weren’t invented at a feast celebrating him.
Modern carnitas are traced back to the Mexican state of Michoacan where the dish is cooked in big copper pots. It’s one of those domestic kitchen dishes everyone makes in their own special way.
José Ralat, taco king, notes that Carnitas tacos made their way to Texas by at least 1915.
New York City has had carnitas for a while, but the dish really became popular in the early 2010s thanks to Denisse Lina Chavez, who sold the dish from Carnitas El Atoradero in the South Bronx. The restaurant set off one of those crazed food trends across the city. Introducing the city to carnitas didn’t help Chavez much though, and the publicity led her landlord to double the rent, and she closed up shop in 2015. Chavez moved onto an El Atoradero in Brooklyn, in Prospect Heights, though she left in 2018.
Carnitas translates to “little meats,” and doesn’t necessarily have to be pork, according to Ralat. Any meat can be cooked using the method, similar to a French confit. (It’s usually pork). At restaurants now it is just as common to oven roast the pork owing to health regulations.
My wife made a marinade for the pork out of a numerous herbs and spices. I wasn’t paying attention to what she smeared on the meat. After a couple of hours, which, sure, that’s not really enough time to fully marinade meat, I prepped the meat for braising.
Here’s where I cut some corners because I have a life with limited time to slow cook a pork shoulder. I didn’t fry off the meat in oil or lard. In this case, I believe it was better to get this meat braising.
I added the chunks of meat into the pot. I left the bone in one piece because I knew it would be finished when the meat slid off, and the bone would help build flavor over the next several hours. I chopped up an onion, Jalapeño, and navel orange, and then filled the pot with orange juice and water. I brought the whole thing to boil, adding a couple of dried bay leaves and handful of garlic cloves before putting it into the oven.
For the first hour it braised with the lid on, then removed the lid. The lid was covered with that dark oven roasting char that’s a sign of a good cook.
The pot was close to full with a few tips of meat and bone were sticking out of the braising liquid. Technically a braise is supposed to be fully submerged, but the parts sticking out served as an indicator on how cooked everything was. Another two hours braising without the lid on and the liquid had reduced, and the pork was falling off the bone, and pretty much ready to go.
I pulled out the orange rind, but at this point the fruit part had melted into the jus. The peppers and onions were mostly disappeared too. I chose to shred the pork with forks. We served the carnitas with white flour tortillas, fresh avocados, sliced, radishes, and fast-pickle shallots and serrano peppers.
Now I’m left wondering what to do with the other six pounds of carnitas sitting in the refrigerator. I guess we’re having tacos for lunch for the rest of the week.
White Guy’s Oven-Braised Carnitas
Ingredients
7-ish lbs manager’s special pork shoulder
1 onion
1 orange
5-9 garlic cloves
3 bay leaves
1-2 Jalapeño peppers
15 ounces of cheap from concentrate orange juice
1 can Coke (optional)
Secret Spice Rub
Instructions
Score the fat on the pork
Chunk the pork into similar size pieces
Rub the secret spices on the meat and let sit for an hour or two
Rough cut the onion
Quarter the orange
Slice the pepper
Peel garlic
Add onion, orange slices, pepper, garlic and bay leaves to the pot
Pour in the orange juice (and optional Coke)
Fill the rest of the pot with water to submerge
Bring the pot to a boil
Cover, and place in 450F oven
After an hour, remove cover
Taste for seasoning
Cook another 90 to 120 minutes, test meat texture
Shred with forks or chunk with knife
Serve with tortillas
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