Making Carnitas

member Ami's amazing local Mexican this place is hog heaven I could smell that unmistakable mouth-watering aroma clear across the market it's a it's a smell that says unequivocally Sunday afternoons in Mexico it says relax joy yourself life is rich it's golden succulent pork carnitas but what exactly are pork carnitas well the simple answer is that they're big chunks of pork that are slowly crisped in Fort Bend that doesn't even begin to do justice to this national iconic institution now I've brought you to the many market in downtown Mexico City to a little stall that's only open on Saturdays and Sundays because that's the time that most residents of Mexico City get hungry for little tacos and juicy pork carnitas in the way that they make them is to heat that really huge cauldron copper cauldron of pork fat and then drop in big chunks of pork they do the whole animal along with some aromatic herbs some orange a little evaporated milk to kind of promote some of the browning and after about two and a half or three hours the pork is really tender they raise the temperature a little bit and it begins to brown and crisp you now this is a little side benefit of the whole carnitas making process sort of become a national institution all its own its chichay role I mean you've got the whole pig and you've got a cauldron of fat there so why not use the skin to make a little crispy pork skin but back to kind of neat this now a lot of customers will come in here in order that kind of eat this by the chemo to take home warm up and serve there but if you want that sort of over-the-top experience I say get a fresh Maine corn tortilla that's still hot off the griddle pile on a little of the crispy pork carnitas and I like the mixture of all of the the parts of the animal what they call the mix dome and then top it off with a little guacamole that comes right out of this meat grinder here boy I'm infratry okay so if you're like me and you think that a bite of those crispy moist incredibly melt-in-your-mouth carnitas is the ultimate pork experience I've got some good news for you you don't have to go to Mexico you don't have to buy one of those great big copper cauldrons we don't have to wait for Sunday coz I have developed what I think is the absolute simplest but very satisfying carnitas recipe just go to the butcher and buy a bone-in pork shoulder roast and then have the butcher cut it into about two inch slabs like that this is a large rose so I have two big slabs that are going to go into a baking dish nine buddy 13 would work good and then sprinkle about a teaspoon of salt over the top then I'm gonna give it just a tiny bit of water I need about a third of a cup just to barely coat the bottom of the pan and then I'm going to cover it with well for the first part of the hooking I've got oven to 375 degrees I'm gonna bake it for about an hour okay let's take a look at what this pork looks like now you see basically the pork itself is tender but it doesn't look anything like carnitas and it's still got a lot of juice around it there so the next step is to raise the oven temperature up to 450 degrees slide this back in and after about half an hour all of that liquid will so when all of that juice is evaporated the pork will start to brown in its own rendered fat turn it every 7 or 8 minutes until it's crispy and deep rich golden brown on the outside that'll take about 20 minutes more that takes me right back to carnitas country now as a confirmed carnivore one of my favorite restaurants in Mexico City is this fresh bright modern seafood place what's that got to do with carnitas well actually quite a lot I mean here at Contra Mar one of Mexico's best seafood restaurants the National craving for car Benitez gets a sort of deep sea do-over when they take big chunks of fresh tuna cut it into smaller pieces flash fry it until it's golden and crispy on the outside and then serve it either in the pieces or chopped up like meat for a taco with guacamole and a little lime to squeeze on you pick a just made corn tortilla scoop on some of the shredded tuna car beneath us I'm gonna smear on a little bit of guacamole take a few of these pickled onions with Abin arrow chili that's a mouth-watering looking taco now that's them a carp neat this preparation you might just want to tackle at home just next one that I'm going to show you maybe not so much you now the real secret to carnitas no matter what you make them out of is really less about the ingredients and more about the method it's that combination of slow cooking and hot fat crisping that makes them so completely addictively appealing I just think about the French fries it's crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside that's the whole carnitas concept well here at our fine dining restaurant Topolobampo in Chicago we take carnitas to a whole new world of irresistible now stick with me on this because the whole process is a little bit complicated but we start with taking a big piece of pork shoulder sliding it into a bag adding a little bit of pork lard fresh rendered pork lard then we vacuum seal that bag then we slide it into a water bath that set at 143 degrees now 50 hours later we take that pork out of the bag and shred it into small pieces then we pack those pieces into a pan we've lined that pan with some plastic wrap top and bottom give it some weight to compact it and then refrigerate it until it's completely firm then we turn that cake out cut it into beautiful little squares and when we're ready to serve the carnitas we Brown each cube until it's crusty and delicious on the outside it would be incredibly luscious and succulent on the inside then we serve it with a smear of Oaxacan style black beans little roasted tomato sauce a dollop of guacamole with a little wedge of lime some pickled onions and microgreens for the perfect balance of textures and tastes thanks a lot Brian you know this is just what I love about Mexican classics they're perfect when you find them in a market stall but they've got the soul the integrity the complexity to be transformed into amazing pretty refined culinary presentations and of course we have seen that not all carnitas have to be made out of pork but we haven't even mentioned the most obvious pork stand-in in carnitas making duck just think about it duck gotta meet us now I'll bet you've heard of duck confit you know it's that that preparation that starts with duck legs that get cooked in their own fat until they're moist and tender and then they're taken out and browned until they're crispy so moist and tender crispy exterior well it's just duck carnitas now if you want to make those and I'm going to make them in a more Mexican style not the old traditional French style it starts by taking duck legs and putting them all together in a baking dish then sprinkle them on both sides with salt and Mexican oregano squeeze on some fresh lime juice cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate them for 24 hours so the next step is to take your marinated duck legs and some fresh rendered pork lard buy that stuff at the Mexican grocery near my house I want to set the lard aside for just a second and I'm gonna cut some paper towels that I can use to dry the marinated duck legs off they should be completely dry before we go to the next step okay next the fresh rendered pork lard needs to be melted put a panda turn my oven on to 300 degrees and light about a medium heat underneath the pot for the pork loin wash and dry that baking dish then fit those dried duck legs back into it then pour that melted lard over the duck legs make sure that they're all submerged and scatter some halved garlic cloves over the whole thing Nestle those down him then slide the pan into your preheated oven and let it bake until those duck legs are really tender that'll take about two hours then take the pan out of the oven and let it cool till it's about lukewarm then take the duck legs out of the lard now I'm pulling the skin off of these duck legs and I'm putting that over here in a separate plate and then the duck leg cut Anita's themselves just come off in large pieces then when our guests arrive well I'm going to heat a little fat in a skillet and I'm going to Brown these duck confit just on the outside making wonderfully savory and tender on the inside and in that same pan I'm gonna cook the duck skin until it's completely crispy and then crumble it up over the outside of the the duck carnitas you remember that meat grinder salsa that we saw in Mexico that meat grinder avocado tomatillo salsa well I thought it would be the perfect accompaniment to go with our duck carnitas so I'm going to start here with some fresh tomatillos I'm going to need about a pound of though I've got some serrano chiles here four of them will probably be good a great big bunch of fresh cilantro and I'm going to peel these tomatillos picking the husk off of them first and then cut them into smaller pieces the tops will come off of the serrano chiles and then I'll give those a rough chop and I'll give a rough chop to the cilantro as well then I'll just put the whole thing through the meat grinder about medium speed I need to put a little chopped onion chopped white onion into this salsa I never put the onion through the meat grinder because if you do I'll tell you that's the flavor of the onion will just overwhelm the salsa and we'll just chop it up way too much so I'm going to chop this onion fairly finely and then I'm going to collect it all in a strainer a small strainer and rinse it off that'll give us the absolute best freshest tasting onion for this salsa so I'm gonna go over here to the water I want it to be really cold and will also give us a nice crisp texture to the onion shake off the excess liquid there and then add it to our sauce I think that'll be about just about the right amount now the last time we've got it put in there is the avocado so cutting around the pit twist the two sides apart Lodge my knife into the pit scoop out the flesh any little bits that are dark like that I can just take out and dice it up and stir it right into our salsa now stir all with that avocado around it doesn't matter if you stir it rather vigorously because you'll break up a little bit of that avocado creating a slightly creamy texture and your otherwise very very bright tasting salsa okay so now I'm gonna give it a little bit of salt here taste that and see what the seasonings are like in it that'll go great with our duck carnitas all we need is some warm tortillas bowls of black beans a little mescaline salad to go with it and it wouldn't be card Anita's without chicharrón wondering how he's going to clean up what it has to do with chicharrón for that matter well this is become a Mexico City taqueria classic and they call it teach are on the case over cheese teacher on and in the second see one until glass yes this is the perfect thing to order when you go to a taqueria with a group of people it's easy to break off pieces as you pass it around and kind of wets the appetite beyond that it's just plain fun so if you decide you want to tack on making gee check rung the kiso at home it's really not all that hard all you need is a nonstick skillet and some Jack cheese now you heat that nonstick skillet over medium until it's thoroughly hot the heavier the pan the easier this whole process is going to be and then you grab some finely grated Jack cheese and sprinkle it around it'll take about a quarter of a cup in a span this size and when it's all kind of melted in there I just start swirling the cheese around in the pan until it coats everything evenly then once the cheese has completely melted you'll see that the oil will start to separate out and when all of that oil is separated out tip it off the rest of the cheese should stick to the bottom of the pan return the pan to the heat and then the cheese that has remained in there will begin to crisp and brown just a little bit I go in with a small spatula and just release all of the edges and then use that same spatula to go up underneath and make sure that it's completely free from the pan sort of like making a crepe then lift out your cheat either on the queso and lay it over a two inch diameter mould I just use a bottle that I lay down it's about that same diameter good thing these chicharones that kiss o are easy to make because I've got guests coming in just a few minutes and I've got a few more to do so to finish up these back carbon ITA's i slid them into some hot oil until they became completely gold and brown on the outside then on to a serving platter and I heated up a little bit more oil to fry the duck skin when the skin was crisp and delicious looking I drained it on a paper towel chopped it up into small pieces and then crumbled them over the top of the duck carcass when it came time to serve I put some of those pork carnitas that I had made earlier on to the platter with the duck and served it with some black beans that cheese Chittagong masala it's an avocado tomatillo salsa I think everybody was pretty happy every day you

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Id: kATDHi2M32Y

Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 03 2014