Slow-cooked pork carnitas with tomatillo salsa
- Preparation and cooking time
- Total time
- A little effort
- Serves 10
Ingredients
- 2kg skinless pork shoulder, cut into really large pieces, about 10cm
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 1½ tbsp ground coriander
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 onion, quartered
- 4 cloves garlic, left whole
- 2 large oranges, juiced
- 1 large or 2 smaller tins tomatillos, or 6-8 large green/unripe tomatoes
- 3 cloves garlic, skin on
- 3 green chillies, halved lengthways
- 1 onion, peeled and quartered
- a handful of leaves coriander
- olive oil
- warm tortillas or finely sliced red onion or crumbled feta or lime wedges or coriander
Method
- STEP 1
To make the salsa put the tomatillos, garlic, chillies and onion on a baking sheet. Season and toss with a little olive oil then roast at 220C/fan 200C/gas 7 until the onion and garlic and chilli are really soft and a little charred at the edges, about 15-20 minutes. Peel the garlic, discard the chilli stems. Tip everything into a food processor with the coriander, and whizz until blended.
- STEP 2
Lower the oven to 130C/fan 110C/gas 1. Toss the pork with some seasoning and the spices. Put in the bottom of a very large shallow casserole dish, or baking dish and tuck in the cinnamon, bay leaves, onion and garlic. Pour over the orange juice. Put on a lid, or tightly cover with foil, then cover and cook for 4 hours.
- STEP 3
Take off the lid and turn up the heat to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Pour off the excess liquid from the meat into a jug, and remove the cinnamon. Cook for another 20-30 minutes until the pork starts to crisp at the edges. Roughly shred the pork, adding a few spoons of the reserved liquid, then pile into warm tortillas with the salsa and accompaniments.