Carnitas

Very very very happy with this one.

Recently, whenever I go to a good Mexican restaurant I try to order something with shredded pork. I love the pull apart texture - and of course the taste. I'd been reading a few recipes for Carnitas recently, and having a Saturday afternoon spare I decided it was time. I got this recipe from a great cookbook I have called Mexican, which I'd bought when we visited Oaxaca. It's a great little book - full of what I would call authentic dishes - not the obvious high street ones.

Within the book it has a recipe for re-fried beans. Now I love re-fried beans and I've always maintained that if I could recreate these at home I'd be a happy man. On Saturday - I was a happy man !



So the key to the Cartnitas it two fold.

The humble orange is used to both marinate and then slowly braise the pork belly (and it needs to be belly)





At this stage I was a little worried...the pork still seemed a bit tough.



And so to the RFB. Firstly you need to boil up some black beans with some fried onions...(at least 2 hours)



These were added to some more fried onions



You then mash the beans down with some of the cooking liquor



And basically cook until dryish. These were absolutely fantastic - even better than the real thing !



I also made a lovely fresh salsa



And so back to the pork. Basically what happens is you cook very slowly, allowing all the juice to evaporate. At this point the pork becomes meltingly tender- and it also starts to fry in the fat that remains. Awesome!



I drained the pork





And plated it up



A fresh guacamole, some sour cream & a wedge of lime, along with the Carnitas, salsa and re-fried beans. A seriously nice and seriously authentic Mexican. Ole!