Pork carnitas tacos with pickled red onion

Why you are cooking this tonight

There are dinners that come out of the kitchen on a big platter and the conversation in the room changes. Everyone stops what they are doing and stands up and walks over. This is one of those.

Carnitas is what happens when a pork shoulder spends four hours in a pot with lard, orange, and a pile of aromatics until it’s falling apart, and then you take the shreds and finish them in a hot pan until the edges go crisp. Crisp where it was on the pan, soft and saucy where it wasn’t. The single best filling for a soft taco ever invented, and I am including the filling that made you realise you liked Mexican food in the first place.

The other dinner we call Mexican in Australia is the tray of nachos, which is a fine food and not this one. This is the real thing. Make it for six, serve it with a margarita the size of your face, and let the night do what it’s going to do.

What you need

For the carnitas

1.5 kg boneless pork shoulder, skin off, cut into rough 5 cm chunks. Shoulder, not leg, not loin. If your shoulder comes skin-on, take the skin off in one piece and render it separately for crackling. Bonus food.

1 brown onion, quartered.

1 head of garlic, halved across the middle.

1 orange, quartered, peel and all.

1 lime, halved.

2 bay leaves.

1 tsp whole cumin seeds.

1 tsp dried oregano, Mexican oregano if you can find it at a decent grocer, regular oregano if not.

½ tsp ground cinnamon.

2 tsp fine salt.

60 g lard or 60 ml neutral oil. Lard is the traditional answer and gives you better crisp. Oil is fine. Don’t use butter, don’t use olive oil.

Water, enough to nearly cover the pork in the pot. About 800 ml.

For the pickled red onion

1 large red onion, peeled, halved, sliced as thinly as you can be bothered. Mandoline if you have one and still have all your fingers.

120 ml red wine vinegar.

1 tbsp sugar.

1 tsp salt.

½ tsp whole black peppercorns.

1 bay leaf.

To serve

18 small corn tortillas (or flour if you must, I will not judge, my grandmother did). Warm them on a dry pan 20 seconds a side.

Coriander leaves, a whole bunch, picked.

Limes, cut into wedges.

Queso fresco or feta, crumbled. Feta works, nobody will arrest you.

Pickled jalapeños out of a jar. Unapologetically.

Your best hot sauce. I am a Cholula man. Go Valentina if you want a sweeter heat. Go Tabasco if you have feelings.

How to cook it

Start with the pickled onion, it improves as it sits

1. Slice the onion as thin as possible. Stack it in a jar.

2. Warm the pickling liquid. Vinegar, sugar, salt, peppercorns, bay in a small pot. Heat until the sugar dissolves. Do not boil.

3. Pour over the onion. Press the onion down so it’s submerged. Add a splash of water if it’s not quite covered. Lid on. Leave at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Refrigerate after that. Will keep in the fridge a fortnight and improves for the first three days.

Now the carnitas

4. Everything in the pot. Heavy pot with a lid, medium-large. Pork, onion, garlic, orange, lime, bay, cumin, oregano, cinnamon, salt, lard. Pour in cold water until the pork is just covered, not drowning.

5. Simmer gently, lid off, two and a half hours. Bubbling but not raging. Stir occasionally. The water will reduce. When it’s almost evaporated, about the 2 hour 15 minute mark, the pork will start to fry in its own rendered fat. This is the moment.

6. Fry in the fat. Once the water is gone, keep the pot on a medium heat and let the pork go golden. Stir every minute or two. The edges crisp, the bottom catches a little. Ten minutes. The sound will change from a simmer to a proper fry. You’ll smell it.

7. Shred. Pull the orange, lime, onion, garlic, and bay out of the pot and bin them (or suck the pulp out of the orange skins because you’ve earned it). Shred the pork with two forks right there in the pot. Some chunks, some shreds, some crispy bits. Taste. More salt if needed. A squeeze of fresh lime brightens everything.

Build the tacos

8. Warm the tortillas. Dry pan, 20 seconds a side, stack them in a clean tea towel to stay soft. A tortilla warmer is optimistic but also acceptable.

9. Put everything on the table. Platter of carnitas. Bowl of pickled onion. Coriander. Lime wedges. Queso. Hot sauce. Jalapeños. Let everyone build their own. Instructions are not required and will be ignored.

What to pour with it

The move with leftover carnitas

There will be leftovers. Crisp the shreds again in a hot pan. Use them for: tacos tomorrow, rice bowls with black beans and a fried egg, quesadillas, a loaded sweet potato, or what I made last Tuesday which was spaghetti bolognese with pork shoulder. That was a good Tuesday.

Two things that go wrong

The pork is dry. You fried too long after the water went. Two strategies: a splash of orange juice and lime into the pan while you shred to rehydrate, or accept that crunchier is the better problem. Dry pork in a warm tortilla with pickled onion is still delicious. Sad pork in a warm tortilla is still delicious.

No crispy bits. The water hadn’t fully evaporated before you shredded. Put it back on medium-high, spread the shreds in a single layer, don’t stir for three minutes. You’ll get your crust.

Variations worth knowing