Carnitas for Tacos - 1 Easy Step, No Frying | Christine Cushing

[Music] hi I'm Christine Cushing and welcome to another helping of my favorite foods today I want to take you to Mexico with a crowd-pleasing slow braised pork shoulder that's done in aromatic spices kumquats that's gonna become our filling for a beautiful do-it-yourself taco station let's get ready to make some goddamn meat that I love the rolling part carnitas so carnitas just means little meats in Spanish and this is a very very popular Mexican recipe there are many variations but this is the way I've found it's made best for me so I want to share it with you we are starting with a pork shoulder a lot of fat here and you need that fat because we want to braise it slowly and what I do actually is cut it up into little pieces before we start to cook it so probably two inch cubes I would say is a good bet it I want to make it too small it's essential to have a fatty cut that pork is really what's gonna keep it tender as it's slow cooking now I want to just chop some aromatics these are pretty much the usual suspects an onion some garlic you know nothing too complex here now traditionally there is in what I have found in the way I've seen this recipe over the years there's some kind of orange citrus fruit but I'm doing a little bit of a twist I love kumquats kumquats are in the citrus family they're like little oranges but the cool thing about them is you can eat the whole thing because the skin is a little bit actually not a little bit but it's a lot thinner so check out how they look inside if you don't have kumquats you can certainly do this with oranges what I would go for is a juice orange so doesn't have a thick membrane when I had a live show I had a live show on Food Network for a long time if you've watched me there hi and my sous chef Juan was from Mexico and we cook together for many years so I learned so much about Mexican ingredients from Juan and it's kind of interesting we did like a cultural exchange I think he adopted some of my Mediterranean as' and I took some of his Mexican flavors and he would make this amazing roasted pork like a slow roasted pork that his mom made with this sour orange so that was my inspiration for this this is a little bit more bitter the kumquat is also gonna give you almost like a marmalade flavor you know of that zest so I absolutely love it here's the Chile that I'm using so this is an ancho it's just a dried poblano that I rehydrated in some hot water by rehydrating it I'm gonna get a kind of a smoother texture and more disbursement of this flavor throughout that's why I do that there's not gonna be a lot of heat this is a mild Chile and I think that's the beauty of the Chile we all tend to focus on the spice but the flavor profiles are incredible in each one has its own flavor in addition to a level of heat look at that deep brick color I mean that is phenomenal and then I want to really introduce some other aromatic spices there's gonna be some clove some cinnamon whole these things I really want to introduce them as a gentle flavor I don't want to be like boom hit you over the head with it so I'm actually leaving the peppercorns whole and I'm not gonna grind any pepper in it spices very minimal outside of these aromatics I am gonna add some cumin which I always toast before I grind insane if you don't toast whole spices and then grind them you have been missing large it's incredible the first smash the whole room is filled with a toasted cumin spell so it really makes a big difference all right last thing in terms of flavoring herbs I'm gonna put in some dried oregano which is also really big in Mexico happens to be green and also Mexican all right now we're getting ready to assemble and braise so a little bit of housekeeping my oven which is where I choose to do this I'm gonna braise it in the oven it's slower and a little bit more ambient as opposed to direct heat which I don't like I have a braising pan but you can just do it in any kind of pot that you cover even a baking dish so now pork going in onions garlic kumquats look at these babies cloves whole peppercorns spices are all in the last thing I'm gonna add before the moisture is the beautiful chopped look at this Oh ancho kyumin's going in not too much because this could become aggressive and we don't want that and what's the moisture gonna be because brazing is slow cooking in moisture it's just some chicken stock forget about pork you want something light and delicate because this is already gonna have a lot of flavor it's these little details right in terms of what's happening here how much liquid do I need depends on the size of your vessel here what I want is to be for the meat to be covered but not fully so I want some peeking out and I'm gonna start it with a lid on to kind of steam it a little bit and then later I'm gonna remove the lid my trick is to not to fry it after this we're gonna braise it and get it crispy all at the same time lids going on and I have it in a still oven at roughly 350 degrees and we have to check it I'm estimating three hours [Music] three hours later with the second half lid off wait till you see these cut underneath this and then we can talk look at that so this is what I was saying about the cutting it up into little pieces it pretty much the second half starts to confit so it's basically cooking in the fat that's rendering and then I drained that off and then look at this it's melt in your mouth but then you get those crispy edges and you get the braising so you did the whole thing in one fell swoop [Music] [Music] now that I have it all chopped up and I like to have it keep some structure I don't want it to be shredded like that you've already chewed it up it should have some texture now this is my idea of your own taco station right do it yourself so you have all the tortillas out and people can help themselves and you have the huge mouth watering effect so I have a couple of flour I have a couple of corn on the bottom I'm gonna do a little bit of let's do a little of the guacamole on the bottom some salsa this is pico de gallo a little bit of sour cream some little shredded carrot if you want a little coriander leaf and repeat and this is the beauty everybody can make it how they like you can assemble them it's got such appetite appeal this kind of a station I think it's just so great for a party for a family gathering for Tuesday night whatever [Music] mouthwatering factor through the roof am I like blind look at this this is a taco with these beautiful carnitas and these artisan amazing flour tortillas oh wow I need to start Academy test truck this is that good Wow the aroma in that pork it's crazy it's so good the cinnamon the spices that kumquat you gotta try to come caught but I can't put this down it's impossible you need to rip this from my hand I will not be able to put it down thank you for joining me on another helping of my favorite foods please subscribe share your thoughts with me like share help me grow the channel try the cotton eat us see you next time on another mouth-watering helping of my favorite foods [Music]

Channel: MyFavouriteFoods ChristineCushing

Views: 508,448

Keywords: Christine Cushing, Carnitas for Tacos - 1 Easy Step, Mexican Slow Cooked Pulled Pork, Carnitas, pork Carnitas, Tacos, best pork cut for carnitas, pulled pork, kumquats, sour oranges, tortillas, guacamole, Mexicanfood, what does carnitas mean, difference between braising in oven or stove, Mexico, chilies, chile, poblano, jalapeno, pico de gallo, salsa, my favourite foods, ccfearless, avocado, taco, wallofchefs, foodnetwork, fearlessinthekitchen, taceria, tex mex, porkcarnitastacos

Id: hkBdoKrsP7k

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2019