Oven Bag Carnitas

I admit it! We take the easy way out, but it works. Here's the original.

2 lbs pork butt, loin, or cushion in 2" cubes
1/4c lard (or vegetable oil)
about 1c water
1 tbsp salt, some pepper
opt. 3 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
juice of 1 lime
juice of either 1 orange or 1 grapefruit (they'd probably use a bitter orange south of the border)

1.) Place the meat, 1/4c lard and tbsp salt in an oven bag, cook in a preheated oven at 350 for 2 hours. Place this package on a baking sheet or a glass bake ware. Follow oven bag directions.

2.) Take the bag out of the oven and drain most of hte juices released by the meat, close the bag, and place back in the oven for another hour or so until the meat is golden brown, using this method the meat will be tender and juicy.

We have added the fruit juice and the bay leaf and pepper into ours. You can also add other seasonings as you like. This is not how carnitas is traditionally made, but it does make a nice shredded pork for use in tacos or on nachos or in tortillas. Whatever.

**Edit**

It occurs to me I forgot the best part. Cleanup is a snap. Since you cooked it in the bag, the dish is basically a snap to clean. Unless you are unlucky, all the cooking mess is in the bag and gets tossed.

a reply to: ketsuko

Sounds delicious!

I wonder if there's a substitute for the lard? Sorry, I haven't clicked on the link yet.

Maybe rub the meat down, lightly, in oil?

I imagine it fills the house with a nice fragrance. The 'clean up' is the the second best part for me.

Might try this! Much yummier than the tortilla chips and slice of cheese I ate last night!

*stomach growls*

I love this short cut ... I made Carnitas a couple of weeks ago from a pork butt/shoulder that
I marinated in Mojo for a few days it came out awesome. I used the meat for taco's and tostadas (sooo Good), but it's a lot of work. When the meat was done and shredded I mixed McCormick Grill Mates Brown Sugar Bourbon powder with some of the cooking fats tossed it in with the meat then broiled it to a crispy brown. Seriously added so much flavor to the meat.
I want to make this for the 4th of July cause it feeds a lot... thanks for sharing and looking forward to making!!

a reply to: TNMockingbird

You can use vegetable oil in place of the lard. Just go quarter cup of that.

We use the lard because it's the more "authentic" route and lard goes into some of our other recipes (biscuits and chicken and dumplings).

Ketsuko, this is exactly the recipe my husband and I were looking for! He recently wanted to try sous-vide cooking (lo temp, looong time, water bath), but after exploring it, we decided that the required cooking vessels were way too expensive but a crockpot wasn't quite right.

For another reason (travel), we had recently purchased a Hot Logic Mini Personal Oven. It worked better than expected for the reason purchased, but he got the idea to try a sorta sous-vide after we returned home. We did steaks (in cooking bags). It worked....maybe not true sous-vide but better than sorta.

Then we were wondering what else we could try. A couple days ago we did our grocery shopping and got some pre-seasoned meats (a tri-tip and a pork loin). When I saw your recipe, I knew we just would have to try it! Being that we are two retired "honored citizens", we neither eat mass quantities of anything as when young nor do we have to feed a family, so we cook at the most a pound and a have of meat at a time (which gives us a few meals). Plus, the mini-oven can only hold at the most six cups.

What I will have to do is cut down the recipe, and skip the added lard/oil and liquid, since we're using the mini-oven. And, yes, the bag sure makes for easy cleanup.

Note to anyone wanting to cook in that Hit Logic Mini Personal Oven. Some people sell them with a Pyrex 6-cup baking dish. Buy it or buy your own to use, but use it. Since it was my husband using it the first time for his "sous-vide", I left the kitchen (or I might have been tempted to "offer advice"). I did mention the Pyrex dish, but he politely declined. Well, sure enough.... just as I thought could happen, all the meat juice spilled out of the bag. The little oven is no problem to clean.... but I wasn't looking forward to it. He did look at the mess and say, "Hmmmmm, I guess next time we'll use the glass dish." I kept my mouth shut.

a reply to: desert

Cooking sous vide is an amazingly convenient and reliable way to prepare food. Machines use to cost a bunch but now there are options. A small Seattle group has put together this. I'll be getting one for home use.

www.chefsteps.com...

Also a great reference, if you're interested, is the book Under Pressure by Thomas Keller. It's a legit resource.

Cheers and happy cooking.

a reply to: ketsuko
I could eat carnitas, literally, everyday. Never tried the oven bag though. Sounds super convenient and I like that.

Have you made your own tortillas yet? Super easy and delicious and masa is cheap. My wife had never liked corn tortillas until I made her eat homemade white corn tortillas right off the fire.

a reply to: TheOnlyAnswer

We haven't tried to do our own tortillas yet. It's on the list of things to try, but generally speaking, by the time you make a taco meal with homemade beans, rice, salsa, and guac ... the kitchen is a hectic place even with two people working on it. I would very much like to indulge in the full experience though with the homemade tortillas. I just have to convince the husband we need to go that in addition to everything else.

that sounds pretty good. add a little soy sauce to get the umami, and it'd be out of this world i bet.

I make pork butt quite a bit. Here, you can buy packages of "carnitas" for super cheap. Its just chunks of pork butt trimmings. About 70% meat, 30% fat. Makes perfect pulled pork, tamales, and pork tacos. We make cuban medianoches from it, too.

You could make yours remarkably like "south of the border" by using lime juice only, and adding chili powder and cumin.

Im going to grab me some oven bags and try your recipe.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: TheOnlyAnswer

We haven't tried to do our own tortillas yet. It's on the list of things to try, but generally speaking, by the time you make a taco meal with homemade beans, rice, salsa, and guac ... the kitchen is a hectic place even with two people working on it. I would very much like to indulge in the full experience though with the homemade tortillas. I just have to convince the husband we need to go that in addition to everything else.

See if you can buy Albequerque tortillas. They are close enough to home made that no one I know makes them homemade anymore.

a reply to: TheOnlyAnswer

Hey, thanks for the link. I'll email it to my husband--who's only 10 feet away on his computer lol-- so he can take a look. I think one of the things that he and I are partial to is well done meat, not burnt but just no pink. So far we've gotten melt-in-your-mouth steak with what we've done. But, heck, who knows, that device could just be a Christmas gift for him.


a reply to: ketsuko

Buena suerte! One thing that could work is just to make a time for only making the tortillas, without making a meal. A family activity. Or do that but have already-made beans and rice (even from a day or two ahead) ready to go. Que te diviertas!

Sounds really good and interesting.....but I have a couple of questions:

Why do you need a cup of oil to cook pork?

Are oven bags safe to use? I admit it is a bit horrifying to me.... to think of cooking in a plastic bag

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Yeah, I know what you mean about the cooking bags. I've only had a couple occasions to use them in my entire life, but my husband wanted to do that specialized cooking and needed to put the food in a bag to cook. We ended up using Reynolds bags, made for high heat. I refused to use any zip lock bags as some people do.

I guess I have too many good memories of my mom covering the Thanksgiving turkey in tin foil in a roasting pan to want to roast any other way, even though clean up is messy. Cooking bags like Reynolds minimize any chemicals, but as with anything involving nylon (a type of plastic) I guess one has to weigh for themselves any slight risk versus benefit. As long as my husband doesn't end up using his cooking technique often, I can handle it (between you and me, right now he's having fun, but soon enough the novelty will probably wear off).

a reply to: desert

Sous vide is such low temperature that leeching of chemicals is minimal at best, however you should purchase specialized sous vide bags which prevent the leakage of endocrine disruptors.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Good point about the specialized bags! Right now it's sorta-sous-vide, at 180deg, so we had to use the high temp bags (which are not the Ziploc). But, maybe I need to buy those silicon re-usable bags. I hate using plastic when there is an alternative.

a reply to: desert

I try to use plastic only for putting over bowls and dishes that I am keeping cool in the fridge and I never put it in the microwave.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Plus, I have to save my "daily plastic allotment" for things like, say, plastic swizzle sticks.... except now I know about a wooden one.... except it's not cute as my plastic holiday ones.

a reply to: ketsuko

Yumm, gonna bookmark this.