(upbeat music) - [Narrator] So the first
component of the carnitas conversation is pork, specifically
pork shoulder or butts, which for some reason
are one and the same. I got about four pounds of
nice fatty pork shoulder that I'm gonna cut into two inch pieces, seasoning generously with
kosher salt, tossing to combine and letting sit at room
temperature for about 30 minutes. Just general best practice with stew meat. Then over on the stove
top, in a large Dutch oven, we're depositing an
astounding two pounds of lard, combining that with the juice and subsequently squeezed
carcasses of one orange. In this case, I have a cara cara orange but you can follow your heart and use whatever orange suits your fancy. A half a yellow onion peeled
and itself cut in half, the contents of one 12
ounce bottle of Coca-Cola, preferably Mexican Coca-Cola
as it's made with cane sugar, Unlike the US version, which opts for the state mandated
high fructose corn syrup. Then I got four peeled cloves
of garlic, optionally crushed, two to four bay leaves depending on how much bay leaf you like. One teaspoon of toasted cumin seeds and one tablespoon of dried oregano. Cover this guy up, crank on the heat and bring 'em to a joyful simmer. At which point we're gonna drop in all of our waiting porky pieces, giving things a cursory stir to make sure that everybody's well coated in fat, trying to get the pork
as submerged as possible, bringing the mixture
back up to a bare simmer. And now normally you would carefully cook this thing on the stove top, but we are parting with tradition by braising in a 300
degree Fahrenheit oven, uncovered for one and a half hours, removing every 30 minutes both to admire and to give it a stir. Then after the first hour
and a half of cook time, we're adding one five ounce
can of evaporated milk, starting to make sure that
it's evenly distributed and returning to the oven
for another hour and a half until the pork is completely tender and everyone in your kitchen, in your home and on your city block can smell the greatness
emanating from your oven. Now at this point, you can shred and prepare the carnitas as desired, but I like to let these
guys chill overnight. This both allows the flavors to meld, and prevents too much juice and gelatin from being squeezed out of the pork by shredding it when it's still hot. So evacuate all the pieces
onto a rimmed baking sheet. Be sure to hang on to
some of this cooking fat. It's completely delicious. It's gonna come in handy. And if you don't believe me,
try frying some eggs in it. Also, be sure to generously bathe the pork in its own cooking liquid
before leaving it out to cool to room
temperature about one hour. Then we're wrapping in plastic wrap and refrigerating overnight. The next day and it's time to shred. You can do this with
two forks or two spoons, or two novelty wolverine
claws or two hands. Maybe dumping it onto
a slightly larger tray as pork seems to expand when shredded, then you can pan fry
this stuff in batches, ideally in that reserve pork fat. Or you can throw it under a medium broiler for about 10 minutes
until it's brown and crisp and ready to become a top tier taco. Season one more time
with salt before serving. And for that, here are a few options. We've got some corn
tortillas that have heated up in a dry cast iron pan and kept warm in a clean kitchen towel, loaded up with carnitas
topped with diced onions and gesturally cilantro. Serve with sliced limes
and you've got yourself a simple unadmittable, classic. Crispy, juicy, impossibly
flavorful carnitas taking front and center stage. But this primo pork can
play any number of roles in any number of game day
or non-game day snacks. One of my favorites,
being flautas or taquitos. First, we're toasting or microwaving small corn tortillas
to make them flexible. Chopping up a thin line of carnitas and rolling them into the tortilla, rolling them tight and
keeping them seam side down so as they do not unravel. Rinse and repeat as many
times as your schedule allows. And then we're headed
over to the stove top where we have about a quarter inch of neutral flavored oil,
like vegetable or canola, preheated in a heavy duty cast iron pan. Carefully add the flautas
and press them seam side down into the oil to seal them shut. Let them fry for about a minute or until they're turning golden brown. Give 'em a flip and continue cooking until they're golden
brown and crisp all over. Drain on paper towels and
hit 'em with a little bit of kosher salt while they're still hot. Now, to top these guys up, ideally we want to
drizzle them with crema, the Honduran cultured sour cream, but it's a little bit hard to find so you can approximate
it by whisking together lime juice and sour cream until it reaches a drizzleable consistency. Stack these guys up on some
pointless leaves of lettuce, some diced onion, a whole lot of crema or crema approximation, some crumbled cotilla cheese,
and of course cilantro. Nice big leaves so that people like me who don't like cilantro can pick 'em off. And there you have it, carnitas taquitos. carnitos or caritas flautas or carnitas. That one didn't work. So you made tacos and
flautas for your guests, but now you're alone. It's late at night, you're probably stoned and you still have all
these carnitas kicking about and you don't want 'em to go bad, do you? Sounds like it's time to
whip up some carnitas nachos. I like to start with a layer
of just chips and cheese, followed by chips and cheese,
followed by the carnitas, so that the chips are insulated
by cheese, then more cheese. Then this guy's headed into
a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven for some amount of minutes
until the cheese is melted and the carnitas are sizzling. At this point you can
add all the not hots, radishes, cotilla, peppers,
pico and guacamole in my case. And there you have it,
caritas nachos or car-nachos. But in the very unlikely
event that you make all these and you still have leftover caritas, in what ways can we start to
bend the rules a little bit? How about some carnitas
cubanos, pull apart party style. For this, I have some King's
Hawaiian slider rolls, which I'm gonna brush down
with melted butter cut side up because I'm gonna do
something (censored) insane. I'm gonna build these
little sandwiches inside out so they have a nice flat surface on which they can be toasted. So first I'm putting down the slider tops, cut side down then cutting off their tops. I'm glad that there's a visual aid here, otherwise this would make no sense. I'm doing this just so
there isn't too much crust inside my sandwich,
which is a new sentence. Then I'm shingling down
some black forest ham, laying down a generous
pile of our carnitas as a stand-in for the moho pork. Dotting that with pickle chips from the world's smallest
container of pickle chips and then shingling several
slices of Swiss cheese. Give that a stylish squirt of mustard, Top that up once again,
confoundingly upside down. Grab another rimmed baking sheet that I have preheated in a
375 degree Fahrenheit oven. Press it down on the buttered surface with a satisfying sizzle, and weigh everything
down with something heavy and oven safe like a cast iron pan. Toast for five to seven minutes
before removing the top pans and continuing to toast until
heated through and melty. And there you have it, near
instant cubanos for a crowd. Obviously carnitas are not moho pork but I've certainly had
less authentic cubanos claiming to be the legitimate article, and it's pretty hard to
argue with the flavor. And how do you do that anyway? How do you argue with the flavor? You don't. You just shove the whole
sandwich in your mouth, swallow it like a snake,
and go on about your day like you didn't just gleefully
eat a pound of carnitas. (gentle music)
