Pork Carnitas

If you've been to Chipotle (or any actual Mexican restaurants), you may have come across a mean pork dish called 'carnitas', which really just means "little meats" in Spanish.  Made famous in the Michoacán region of Mexico, large hunks of seasoned pork are cooked for a very long time in either broth (braised) or fat (rendered in lard, essentially) before plating with tortillas, lime, and cilantro.  I didn't quite feel like cooking an already fatty pork shoulder in lard for many hours, so I went looking for a broth recipe, and merged a number of them to create what I thought was a very flavorful but simple finished product.  Rather than deep frying to get the right kind of crisp exterior and moist interior, I created a two-step method of braising followed by quick browning in the oven, with enough liquid to prevent it from getting dry.  I've made this dish a dozen times, and it's a consistently easy hit among company.

First of all, this dish is greatly facilitated by a pressure cooker.  If you don't have one, a slow cooker might do the trick.  If you don't have that, maybe just a heavy pot.  And if you don't have one of those, you probably shouldn't be on this site.  To make this, I use picnic shoulder, but I've also used Boston Butt.  Either one is great, as it will have the right amount of fat to add to the very lean cooking method.  Don't get all crazy on me and put in a pork loin, or you will miss out on the flavor imparted by the fat which, if you do this right, is mostly cooked out in the process of slow braising.  An explanation is in the directions.

Pork carnitas, served simply with corn tortillas and black beans

Shredded Pork (Carnitas)

• 2 16 oz cans of chicken broth
• 1 lime, juiced, zest shaved first with zester or removed in large strips with a vegetable peeler
• 1 large scallion, cut into 3 pieces
• 3 garlic cloves
• 4 pounds of boneless pork shoulder
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander (cilantro)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp cumin
• Corn Tortillas
• Chili sauce, such as Pico de gallo, chipotle or whatever you like

The setup.  It's a very short list, not hard to gather

Cut the pork meat in chunks and discard big pieces of fat, but leave some fat as it adds to the flavor.  Set a large pot or pressure cooker over mid-high heat.  Add the pork, garlic, lime zest, bay leaves, cilantro, cumin, green onion, juice from the lime, and broth.  I like to zest the whole lime into the pot and then just cut it in half and squeeze the mangled fruit juice right in there, making for easy cleanup.  If you prefer more tartness, add more citrus to your braising liquid.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for about 3-4 hours or until the meat is very soft and pulls apart easily, or 1 hour for the pressure cooker.

Before simmering.  This is a really easy dish to get started, just throw everything in there and close it up.  Takes 5 minutes or less.

After simmering.  This meat is now incredibly tender and falling apart, so remove carefully

20 minutes before the stovetop portion is done, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Remove the meat carefully and place it in a roasting pan, discarding the green onion and broth.  If you did this right, especially in the pressure cooker, the meat will fall apart, so you may need a slotted spoon.  Try to let as much of the liquid drain out as possible, which should contain a lot of the rendered fat from the pork.

Shred the pork with two forks, removing large bits of fat to lean it out some.  Drizzle some cooking liquid over and throw in the oven to crisp up

Grab two forks and shred the meat into bite-sized pieces.  As you shred the pork, it will be obvious where there are large lumps of unrendered fat.  You can pull these out and discard, making for a much more lean finished dish.  After you've shredded thoroughly, ladle back on about 1 cup of the cooking liquid from the pot, which you are welcome to run through a fat separator to avoid consuming the rendered fat.

After a few minutes in a very hot oven, the pork will develop an excellent crispy exterior without getting too dried out.  Don't leave it in too long.

Bake for about 20 minutes until the meat is brown and crispy.  Heat the tortillas and enjoy, serving with your favorite chili sauce, queso fresco, chopped onions, and cilantro.  Garnish with cilantro-lime rice, radishes, black beans, fried plantains, or whatever you like.

I had vegetarian friends over, so I added some pan-roasted vegetables with sofrito and vegetarian black beans

This dish also happens to freeze well, and has a number of leftover uses.  Put it over nachos, make it into a breakfast burrito, throw it in tacos, etc.  Basically, in the words of Jim Gaffigan, all you need is "a tortilla filled with meat, cheese, or vegetables", and you can recreate essentially any form of Tex-Mex food.  But at least with this recipe you know your dish will be a winner.

Tomatillo Salsa and Homemade Tostadas

Do you ever wake up and think, wow, I need some tomatillo salsa!  Well, I did recently, and decided that rather than traveling to Mexico, I might make some of my own.  Recently some friends of mine made a batch, and it made me realize that I need to stop eating the jarred version.  I put this stuff on everything - burritos, nachos, tacos... well, basically anything that's a tortilla covered in meat, cheese, and/or vegetables.  What I have since learned is that made well, it's tangy, a little sweet, spicy, and incredibly fresh, more like pico de gallo than jarred salsa.  Made poorly, and it's often tart and no better than what you can buy from a jar.

Last time I tried to make this, I ended up with option b above.  I tried to oven-roast the tomatillos, and in the process just cooked the heck out of them, losing their fresh taste.  This time I switched recipes and went for the broiler, mostly because it was threatening to rain outside and I didn't want to turn on the grill.  If you have a gas oven, I recommend the broiling option, which seemed to work pretty well.

Tomatillos.  A nightshade like tomatoes, but they grow in a husk, are much more tart, and remain green.

For once, I didn't want to build a menu around meat, so this meal was all about everything else.  I opted to make tortillas from scratch, use some pickled onions from my recent poblano burger recipe, and whip up a quick beef filling to serve as the protein.  But trust me, you could use anything here - roasted vegetables, tofu, refried beans, whatever.  I will present the recipes for the tomatillo salsa (courtesy Rick Bayless), the tortillas (courtesy of my friend German from Mexico), and the beef tacos (from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook).

Tomatillo Salsa

unmodified from Rick Bayless recipe

• 1 pound tomatillos, husked and rinsed
• 4 to 5 serrano chiles, stemmed
• 1 small (4 oz) white onion, sliced 1/4-inch thick
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro, loosely packed
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tsp salt (approximate)
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)

Heat the broiler. Lay the whole tomatillos and serranos on a broiler pan or baking sheet lined with foil. Set the pan 4 inches below the broiler and let roast until the tomatillos are softened and splotchy black in places (the skins will split), about 5 minutes; your goal is to cook the tomatillos through while they roast, which means they'll have begun their transition from light bright green to olive color on the top side. With a pair of tongs, flip over the tomatillos and chiles and roast the other side for another 4 or 5 minutes or so. Set aside to cool.

Broiled tomatillos and peppers.  Notice the hints of bright green still seen in some parts - this means I didn't overcook them.  Try to get the char on as quickly as possible!

Turn the oven down to 425 degrees. Separate the onion into rings and, on a similar pan or baking sheet, combine them with the garlic. Set in the oven. Stir carefully every couple of minutes, until the onions are beautifully roasted (they're going to look rather wilted and translucent, even have a touch of char on some of the edges); the garlic should feel soft and look browned in spots. Total roasting time will be about 15 minutes. (If you like smoky flavors in your salsa, try roasting the onion and garlic on a perforated grilling pan over a moderately low charcoal fire.) Cool to room temperature.

In a food processor, pulse the serranos (no need to peel or seed them) with the onion-garlic mixture until moderately finely chopped, scraping everything down with a spatula as needed to keep it all moving. Scoop into a big bowl, then, without washing the processor, coarsely puree the tomatillos and their juice. Stir them into the bowl. (If you're making the largest quantity, you'll have to do the tomatillos in two batches.) Stir in the lime juice and enough water to give the salsa an easily spoonable consistency-in Mexico they like this salsa spicy and pretty runny, the kind of salsa you dribble on rather than scoop up with chips. Stir in the cilantro.

Taste and season highly with salt.  Taste again and, if you wish, add just enough sugar to take the edge off the tomatillos' very bright tanginess. If you're planning to use your salsa right away, simply pour it into a bowl and it's ready, or refrigerate it and use within 5 days.

Tomatillo salsa, coarsely pureed and seasoned to my liking.  Best recipe I've found so far.

Homemade Tortillas (enough for 4 small)

• 1/2 cup Maseca tortilla mix
• 1/3 cup water
• pinch (1/4 tsp) salt

In a bowl, combine all three ingredients.  Stir with a clean hand to combine (there is a reason for this).  You want to make sure the mix is the right consistency.  What is this consistency, you ask?  Ah, now THAT is hard to describe.  Perhaps a picture will help:

Tortilla dough, mixed to the right consistency

This is why I say mix with your hands.  You want to make sure the dough is coming together, and not too wet.  Odds are, you will need to add more water than the recipe.  But don't go crazy - add 1 teaspoon at a time until everything just comes together, and forms a relatively dry ball with no small grains that can't be incorporated.  But if it's too wet, it won't cook right, so be patient and be one with your dough.  For the record, this type of guesswork is the same process for making crepes and, to a certain extent, pancakes as well.

Now just whip out your tortilla press.  What, you don't have one?  Well why are you following this recipe!  You need a press to make tortillas, they can't just be rolled out with a rolling pin.  I suppose you could put two plates of metal down and then drive over them with your car, but that's fairly inefficient.  No, what you want is one of these:

My tortilla press, safely wrapped in plastic bags to make getting the tortillas out of them a lot easier.

My Mexican friend gave me one that he bought south of the border for like $5, although Amazon will charge you $12 for one.  Homemade tortillas taste pretty great, and you can make them very easily from basically one ingredient, so I think it's a worthwhile tool to keep in the kitchen.  Anyway, separate the dough into 4 equally sized pieces, and form them into balls.  Place one ball in the press, closer to the hinge side than the center, and work your magic:

Pressing out a tortilla.  It's a fun way to take out some frustrations, up there with tenderizing meat and shelling walnuts

Once you've got your tortillas pressed, cook them in a dry skillet set over high heat, about 2 minutes per side.  You're looking for a little char, but not full-on bursting into flames.  I tried an electric skillet this time, which is great for the surface area, but a large skillet set over a gas flame would be better.  You may need to do just one or two at a time.  As they finish, place them in a towel, basket, or some other storage vessel to keep them warm.

Homemade tortillas, warming in my tortilla basket.

Beef Taco Filling

America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

I put this recipe here to convince you that the packet of taco seasoning from the store is not the only way to make tacos.  It's mostly salt and MSG in that stuff, anyway, and this recipe had a nice balance of flavors that I look forward to nursing for the next few days.  It also didn't take much time to make.  However, it does assume that you keep chile powder on hand.  Note well - chile is not the same as chili!  Chili powder is an uncreative mixture of spices that you buy pre-mixed.  Chile powder is exactly that - powdered chiles.  I make my own by grinding a mixture of ancho and guajillo chiles.

Chile powder, not chili powder.  Note the dark color and lack of spices like salt, pepper, etc.  That's because it's just chiles!

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, minced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons chile (not chili) powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• salt
• 1 lb lean ground beef (or chicken, or tofu, or vegetables, or anything you like)
• 1/2 cup canned tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup low sodium broth (beef, chicken, vegetable)
• 2 tsp cider vinegar
• 1 tsp light brown sugar

To begin, grind up any spices you might need to prepare, and set everything at the ready.  Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. 

Sauteing onions for taco filling.  Don't cook them much more than this

Stir in the garlic, spices, and 1 teaspoon salt.  Cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Stir in the ground beef.  Cook, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until no longer pink, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the tomato sauce, broth, vinegar, and sugar.  Simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Season with salt to taste.

Final skillet of beef taco filling

The Final Product - Homemade Tomatillo Salsa over Homemade Beef Tostadas

So now let's put it all together.  To serve, I like to let everyone assemble their own dish, but the general idea is to layer everything on the tostada so you can get a hint of all the flavors in every bite.

Here's what I like to bring to the table.  Nice serving size, right?  Left to right, you've got the tomatillo salsa, cilantro, sour cream, pickled onions, grated cheese, and hot sauce.  Up top are the homemade tortillas and beef taco filling.

And here's what a couple of finished tostadas looked like.  This is definitely knife and fork food.

Here's what a vegetarian version looks like, from my last round.  Sub the meat out for zucchini, peppers, and black beans.