Cinco De Mayo Menu

Recipe Carnitas

I’ve tried making carnitas many ways, from sous vide to slow cookers to the grill. I chose this recipe because I think it is the best bang for your buck. You can certainly spend a lot more time and effort, and you might squeeze out an additional 5-10% of deliciousness, but ain’t nobody got time for that! This method is the only reliable one I know you can do in under 6 hours and produce consistently solid results. This dish makes use of two quick pickles. Quick pickling is exactly what it sounds like. We blanch vegetables and then let them steep in an acid, to pickle them. It’s a useful trick when you need a pickle in a hurry.

A recipe by

Ben Phillips

Ingredients List

• 2½ lbs boneless pork butt/shoulder
• 1 small white onion
• 1 medium red onion
• 4 jalapeno or serrano peppers
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 1 orange
• 6 garlic cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 tbsp dark brown sugar
• 1 cup rendered lard, duck fat, or canola oil
• Black peppercorns
• 1½ cups apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• 16 4½-5” corn tortillas
• 1 bottle dark beer
• ½ cup whole milk
• 4 limes
• Kosher salt (all measurements were made using Diamond Crystal salt; use half if using Morton’s)

LET’S COOK SOME BUTT!

• Cut the pork into 2½ -3” cubes. In a large bowl, season the pork on all sides of each cube with salt and refrigerate for 2 hours.
• Roughly chop the white onion, half the orange, smash the garlic cloves and remove their skin.
• Add the fat to dutch oven or other large pot and heat over high heat. Add the pork cubes and brown on all sides.
• Reduce the heat to medium low. Add the onion, orange, garlic, bay leaves, sugar and ½ cinnamon stick to the pot.
• Cook until you can split a cube easily with two forks, about 90 minutes.

PREPARE THE PICKLES AND OTHER GARNISH

• Remove the top and bottom from the red onion, cut in half, and then thinly slice each half.
• Bring 3 cups of salted water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add onion, cook for 1 minute and drain.
• Add onion, 1 bay leaf, 8 black peppercorns, a generous handful of salt, 1 ½ cups apple cider vinegar and 1 ½ cups water to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then immediately remove from heat.
• Pour all contents into a heatproof container and move to refrigerator/freezer to cool.
• Remove stems from peppers, cut into ¼” slices and place in a heatproof container.
• Bring ¾ cup of water, 1 tsp sugar, and 2 tsp kosher salt to a boil in a small saucepan.
• Remove from heat and pour liquid over peppers. Move to refrigerator/freezer to cool.
• Split cilantro bunch in half. Remove stems. Hand tear half of the leaves for garnishing pork, finely chop the remaining leaves to serve with the tacos.
• Cut ends off limes, cut into eight pieces each and transfer to a small bowl.

FINISH AND SERVE

• Add the milk and ½ of the bottle of beer to the pot. When it’s just about boiling, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
• Remove from heat and transfer the pork to a serving plate. Garnish with torn cilantro.
• Warm tortillas by sprinkling/spraying each one with water then throwing in a hot pan for 30 seconds/side. Do this in batches, don’t overcrowd the pan. Wrap the heated tortillas as you go in a towel.
• Serve pork with pickles, warm tortillas, quartered limes and finely chopped cilantro. Enjoy!