Anyone Cook Mexican? (Carnitas)

S

sparrow

Cathlete
Morning All:

I have friends visiting tomorrow and, as a treat, I'm making carnitas, since they love Mexican food. I have a specific recipe I want to try. I looked at it more closely this morning and the recipe calls for SIX POUNDS of lard!! That can't be right, can it? SIX pounds?! I only have 3 pounds of meat! I googled carnitas but there are so many recipes and only one I found calls for lard at all. I've never in my life cooked with lard, so I thought I would pick the catheite cooking brains...anyone skilled with Mexican food? Of course I can just make another recipe but I really want to try this particular one.

Thanks!

Sparrow

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www.scifichics.com
 
How different are the other recipes? If it's the spices or the technique you like for the first recipe just incorporate that. I modify oil in recipes all the time, but have never used lard. I'm assuming it's just to fry/cook the meat in.

HTH

Jeanette
 
I've never done carnitas (don't even know what they are), but my dad gave me an awesome homemade burrito recipe. Let me see if I can find it. If so, I'll post it.
 
Found it! Homemade burrito meat. This is to die for!

-1 softball-sized (or larger) piece of "stringy" meat (sirloin tip, t-bone, NY strip, Top Sirloin, roast -- any stringy meat is good)
-1 medium onion, quartered
-Oregano (just sprinkle it over the palm of your hand and then drop it into the pan -- more or less to taste)
-ground cumin (same as with oregano)
-5-9 cloves of garlic, whole
-1 whole banana or chili pepper (depending on whether you like it mild or hot)
-1 can diced green chili peppers
-1 can whole tomatoes (medium or large can, whatever you like -- you can't go wrong either way with this recipe)
-tomato paste to thicken, if desired

Literally, you just drop everything into a Dutch over or large soup pot. You don't have to cut up anything. Cover and simmer for 3-5 hours - if it boils slightly, that's okay, but you don't want it to "rolling boil". You know it's done when you stick a fork into the meat and it "disintegrates" and pulls away easily. You don't have to do much stirring with this recipe. It's pretty low maintenance, and your guests' mouths will be watering as soon as they walk into your house and smell the wonderful aroma of this cooking on your stove. Your whole house will smell heavenly from this recipe!

Lightly heat up some large flour tortillas (both sides) in a skillet until they are lightly browned. break up chunks of the meat and other ingredients and wrap them up inside the tortillas. Put the wrapped up burritos (folded-side-up) on a baking sheet and layer with slabs of mozzarella and Monterey Jack cheeses. Put into a preheated oven on broil and heat until the cheese melts and turns bubbly.

Serve with lettuce and tomato and sour cream (or whatever mexican side dishes you have). We also make a cheese tortilla and refried beans when we make these burritos. It's wonderful!

Happy eats!
 
WE had my whole family over for a Mexican dinner last Saturday.. my husband does most of the cooking. We make carnitas in the crockpot, cook slowly almost all day, without fat. Last year made it with a green sauce with tomatillos. Just a lot of good spices, cilantro, etc. This time we made what he calls Chili Colorado, it is with beef instead of pork. I can;t even imagine using any lard, let alone 6 pounds!
 
I have never made the carnitas. I am planning to make shredded beef tamales and empanadas for the month of December.
 
Sparrow,
I am from San Diego and mexican restaurants abound here and lard seems to be a staple of mexican food. 6 lbs of lard is not unheard of for 3 lbs of pork. A great deal of mexican food from the traditional refried beans to carnitas calls for lots of lard. As unpleasant as lard my seem it does lend a good flavor. However with experimentation you can still get great flavor without so much unhealthful fat. I have purchased ready made carnitas and the containers they come in always seem to have a lot of excess fat at the bottom. I really think you can cut the lard down to 4 lbs and maybe even 3 if your heart is set on this particular recipe. Good luck.
Claudia
 
thanks for the tips and info everyone! It's so silly to be this conflicted about an ingredient but using lard at all just seems so...wrong. DH asked if I was trying to kill him when he read the recipe :D

I think I am going to throw caution to the wind and not use the lard. I really wanted to do the authentic thing, and I know using lard for one meal won't kill me, but I do think it might give all of us eating it a serious case of the mollygrubs, since we all eat healthfully 99 percent of the time!

Sparrow

___________________
www.scifichics.com
 
They were great!! Really tasty even without the lard. Only hitch was that I did the meat in the crock pot rather than on the stove, as some mentioned they used a crockpot, and it took 4 hours to cook instead of two. Guess that's why they call crock-pots "slow cookers", duh. :p

Luckily there was plenty of good wine and conversation to keep people occupied....

Sparrow

__________________
www.scifichics.com
 
Sounds like you had fun. That's great! My DH and I have very little time to socialize. Well, I should say that I have time--my DH does not:-(

I think I'd like that recipe when you have time to type it out. Thanks Sparrow.

Michele
 
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