They are part of those long-simmered dishes that are not very complicated to prepare; you just have to remember that you have to be early. What I like about this dish is the fact that it can be prepared the day before, because it is always tasty warmed: I have counted on him many times to receive friends unexpectedly!
I usually serve them as an ordinary main dish, accompanied by equally ordinary vegetable garnishes. Then, if there are still some small pieces of meat, they can be used as sandwich fillings, slipping in half-baguettes, flatbreads or tortillas.
I tasted carnitas for the first time in a sandwich at Freddie's Deli, the "sedentary" restaurant of the Smoking Truck, where their name was translated as "Snack Pork Snack". At that time, I was more intrigued than impressed, but I continued to explore them by systematically ordering them in Mexican restaurants in Texas (evidenced by the second image ...). When I wanted to do them at home, I came across a David Lebovitz post where he was commenting on his own experience at Freddie's Deli, with a link to his version of the recipe. I tested it and the first time, I was able to prepare very tasty carnitas. I tried his recipe a few times and found that adding orange juice (an ingredient found in most carnitas recipes) was almost the only thing that could have improved it . In addition, its recipe is also the most perfumed and "lightened" possible.
By definition, carnitas are not a very spicy or fragrant dish, as they are thought to be self-sufficient. It is also not a light dish, since it is prepared with "low" pieces of meat: in fact, the meat slowly confit in its own fat. But not here! And the result is still very successful.
In this recipe, the traditional cooking casserole is replaced by a long baking. The orange juice tenderizes the meat that slowly absorbs the aromas of cinnamon, cumin, bay leaves and chilli ancho (one of my favorite meat mix ...). I also noticed that the preliminary salting step is very important, so do not skip it. When trying to cook in a casserole with or without a lid, I noticed that the flavors are preserved longer in the meat when it is prepared in a closed casserole, but that the dish is tasty immediately after cooking when it has been cooked in an open casserole.
Carnitas
Preparation time :
About 30 minutes
Rest time :
Between 1 and 3 days
Cooking time :
Between 4 am and 4:30 am
Ingredients:
- 1.6 kg of pork (shoulder, sautéed, ...) cut into large pieces (5 - 6 cm, at least)
- 2 teaspoons of coarse gray sea salt
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil (or rapeseed)
- 1 stick of cinnamon of 5 cm
- 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper powder
- 1 teaspoon chili ancho (or serrano) powder
- 2 bay leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried oregano)
- 1 teaspoon of cumin (I use cumin in seeds and not in powder)
- 3 - 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
- 1 glass of freshly squeezed orange juice
Preparation:
Remove excess fat from pieces of meat, put them in a ceramic or glass container and rub them with salt. Cover and refrigerate for 1 day (you can leave the meat well until 3 days.)
Heat the oil in a large enough pot so that the pieces of meat can be stored in a single layer. Then cook the pieces of meat until they are golden brown on all sides, turning them as little as possible.
Heat the oven to 180 ° C.
Remove the meat from the casserole, then pour in a glass of cold water and scrape the bottom to release all the juice left. Add garlic and spices.
Put the meat back in the pan, add the orange juice and enough water so that the pieces of pork are covered with 2/3 of the liquid.
Bake uncovered for 3 1/2 hours, monitoring the cooking and turning the pieces of meat every hour, until the liquid is evaporated and the meat begins to unravel.
Take the casserole out of the oven. Remove the pieces of meat and shred them into bite-sized pieces, possibly removing the
No comments:
Post a Comment