This is a dish that keeps on giving! It starts out as Pork Carnita's and can be turned into BBQ Pork Pulled Sandwiches!! I want to share with you my recipe because it's just too fabulous to keep to myself. After researching online all the different ways to make this meal, I settled on a combination of ingredients that we enjoy and gave it a shot.
Lucky for me we have a wonderful store here called "Winco Foods". It seems like a discount type of grocery store, however it's HUGE and doesn't have off brand stuff, and we manage to save about $50 each trip, and we noticed they have a LOT of the cuts of meats we enjoy. Carnitas, Carne Asada, Fajita meats...it's all really quite awesome to know that I can walk into this grocery store and purchase the meat that normally goes into these dishes and it's already prepared, as far as the slice or the hunk form that it needs to be so that all I have to do is season it, cook it and VOILA!
So...when you head to your grocery store and want to gather up all the ingredients for Pork Carnitas, there's a few MUST HAVES. First of all the meat, of course. Sometimes you'll luck out, especially if you are in an ethnic rich environment - the stores will have the cuts of meat to serve the demographic. Here in Washington state, we can actually purchase Pork Carnitas meat. It's REALLY cheap! The key is good fat distribution and ribboning. That's what makes it juicy and "fally aparty" - yes, that's a CARMENISM...usually the packages that I buy have about 4-5 hunks (about the size of your fist...maybe a little bigger) of meat in the package.
You'll also want a medium to large onion. Be sure to have plenty of salt on hand. At least one can of chicken OR beef broth - I can tell you that yesterday when I made this dish, I had run out of beef broth. The last two batches I made, were with beef broth. This time, I didn't feel up to heading back to the store to get some beef broth, so I went with the chicken broth. I THINK IT WAS BETTER!!!!! Then you'll want some cilantro, limes, and all the fixins a normal person likes for their tacos. Like cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, tomatoes...yadda, yadda, yadda.
So your shopping list for the main part of the dish will look like this:
Pork Carnitas meat (or Pork Butt)
Chicken/Beef broth
Onion
Oil (whichever you prefer - we use Extra Virgin Olive Oil a LOT!!)
Salt
Pepper
Once you get these ingredients you'll be set. In a LARGE skillet, you'll put about 4 tbsp of oil (maybe a little more) and heat it nice and hot. When I open the package of meat, I'll salt it REALLY WELL while it's still in the packaging...you'll feel like you're putting too much on, and when you feel like that, put just a little more on. :o) Once the oil is really hot, place the salted side of the meat down into the skillet. Once you get it all in the skillet, make sure you salt the side that's facing up! We're wanting to brown both sides of the meat, sort of get a little bit of a crust on the outside. It'll seal in the juices. Once the meat is browned on both sides, I'll chop the onion into big chunks and just sprinkle it over the meat, then IN GOES THE BROTH! Slap a lid on that baby and turn the heat down on the pan. This little exercise is called "Braising" where the meat bubbles away sitting in liquid...not to be confused with BOILING - which is your meat being completely submerged and at times floating...that's not what we're doing here.
You want the broth to gently simmer LID ON for about 2 hours. If you get the temp perfect for simmering, you will not have to touch the meat until the 2 hours is up. The first time I made this I had the temp too high and the broth boiled away and the bottom of the pan burned. I HIGHLY ADVISE AGAINST THIS! I saved it, by trimming off the burned parts of the meat, changed pans and put it back on the stove and in the end it wasn't a bad first attempt. Burning it gave it an awesome smoky flavor! LOL - I have never burned ANYTHING and had it turn out REALLY GOOD before...WHEW! Crisis AVERTED!
So after 2 hours of gently simmering, the meat will be....AWESOME. You know that it's done when you take a fork to it and it just falls apart and disintegrates. Something happens to the onions too, but I have no idea where they go...I think they just disolve. The chicken broth at this point is basically gone, and if there's still a little in the bottom of the skillet, just crank up the heat to high and let it sizzle away, you can also use this time to pull apart the meat and brown it a little bit and make some of it a little crispy...but be careful! :o)
You're basically DONE at this point. Hopefully while the meat was cooking you did a little prep work for all the fixin's you like to stack on top of your burrito/tacos. Shredding the cheese...you know...that sort of thing. We really like getting a large skillet out and warming up our flour tortillias. When they get a little bit brown, they are ready to start piling on all the good stuff.
You'll have to come back here or visit our Facebook Fan page for Delish Dish in the Kitch. Let us know by leaving a comment how your meal went and how miserable you were after you ate all of that delicious pork!!
For BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches, you can prep the meat the same exact way - I usually have carnitas the first night and maybe the very next night or for lunch the next day warm up the meat and just pour your favorite BBQ sauce over it! Brown up some oversized sesame hamburger style buns and you are in BUSINESS!!!
I can't wait to hear how you like this dish!!!
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