Ernestos Mexican Food Carnitas Recipes

Steps:

• Place meat in a medium-size roasting pan. Sprinkle with garlic and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper. Squeeze the juice from one orange and the lemon over the meat. Slice the remaining oranges and place over the meat. , Cover and bake at 350° for about 2 hours or until meat is tender. With a slotted spoon, remove meat and drain well on paper towels. Heat a small amount of oil in a skillet and fry meat in batches until browned and crispy. , Serve warm in tortillas with toppings of your choice. Freeze option: Freeze cooled pork mixture in freezer containers. To use, partially thaw in refrigerator overnight. Fry meat in batches as directed until crispy and brown. Serve as directed.

Steps:

• Heat oil to medium temperature. Place all ingredients in oil except sugar. Cook on medium temperature for 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours.
• Take sugar and caramelize in small pan over medium heat almost to burn.
• Turn meat mixture heat to high and add caramelized sugar, stir and cook for an additional 15 minutes.
• Drain meat thoroughly.
• Serve with pico de gallo salsa, fresh homemade tortillas, frijoles and margaritas.
• Source: Luis Sanchez, Ernesto's Mexican Food, Sacramento, California.

Steps:

• Alright first thing you got to do is rinse off and dry your pork butt and trim any excess fat hanging off of it and the fat cap to less then half an inch most of the time it is already done but if not that is what you are looking for.
• Mix up the dry rub I will put it in a shaker to make it easier to coat the butt. this would be a good time to chop up your choppables. Most of the time I slice the onion and Serranos then mince or press the garlic really this is your choice don't think it batters much but I will leave that up to you.
• Rub the pork butt with olive oil and coat with all the dry rub make sure to work it into the meat and get into the crevasses.
• Place the pork butt in a crock pot throw the onions garlic and Serrano peppers on top.
• Pour the orange juice over the top toss on the lid and let her cook.
• Ok let me throw this out there if you do not own a crock pot or yours is not big enough to fit a 5 or six pound pork butt you could either throw this together in a Dutch oven or if you don't have that either, which by the way you should they make great family heirlooms, use a roaster and put in the oven pre-heated to 275 degrees ferinheit.
• Now we wait should take about 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low in the crockpot. In the oven should take about 5 hours you could shave that time down by raising the heat but I wouldn't it's worth the wait, if you decide to up the heat don't go past 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Trick time the thing that makes for getting this right isn't waiting a certain amount of time. You will know it is done when you can grab the bone in the center of the pork butt and when you give it a twist I comes right out of the meat easy and clean. That's all you need to know not to every under or over cook a pork but again.
• When the bone comes out clean remove the meat from the crock pot/ Dutch oven/ roaster and wrap up tight in foil to rest for at least half an hour and you can comfortably handle the pork bare handed. This is the time to shred the pork.
• Now what makes this so good is after the pork is shredded heat some oil in a pan and fry up the pork to get it crisp splash it with the drippings from the pan from time to time really adds good flavor. Throw this on a good roll and skip the BBQ sauce instead throw some Pico De Gallo and some avocado on top.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large Dutch oven, combine pork, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper and the oregano, and toss to evenly coat the meat in the spices. Squeeze orange juice all over the pork and add the juiced orange quarters to the pot. Add onion, garlic, cinnamon stick and bay leaf, and toss until well incorporated, nestling everything in an even layer. Drizzle oil evenly over the meat. Cover and braise in oven until pork is tender, about 2 1/2 hours, stirring once halfway through the cooking.
• Heat broiler to high, setting a rack 6 inches from the heat source. Transfer pork to a rimmed baking sheet and shred the meat. Strain juices from the pot through a fine-mesh sieve into a small bowl, pressing on the solids; discard solids. Skim fat from top and reserve the juices.
• Broil pork until golden and crisp in spots, about 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer carnitas to serving plates and drizzle with some of the reserved juices. Serve warm with tortillas and toppings of choice.