Carnitas is Tasty!

For Cinco de Mayo, we went to Chevy's near the Trade Center for happy hour with Jen's co-workers. It was a night of beer, tequila shots, and free toys: keychains, rattles, and hats (both regular and sombreros). After Chevy's we headed to La Esquina (The Corner) for some tacos.

On el seis de mayo, we made carnitas based on the recipe in the Niman Ranch Cookbook, which happens to be the recipe used by Chipotle, the chain restaurant. Chipotle founder Steve Ells is really doing a good thing. As the chain becomes more and more established, he leverages that to invest in better-quality ingredients. The most impressive investment - at least to me - is the pork that they buy from Niman Ranch. Below is an exerpt from an awesome article on the relationship between these two companies:
Link to Article
Niman Ranch Website

"For test after test, Niman shipped Ells hundreds of pounds of small
industrial batches of pork. Once he was satisfied with the flavor of Niman Ranch
pork, Ells asked to tour Niman’s farms to investigate the husbandry and animal
welfare standards. Ells was seeking many answers. Would the pork production
standards of Niman’s cooperative fulfill the vision of Chipotle’s Food With
Integrity philosophy? Could Niman’s network of independent family farms in the
Midwest deliver meat with a consistent eating experience? Could Niman’s
old-fashioned pig farming live up to modern standards of food safety and
butchering? “It was rigorous,” Niman says of the investigation. “[Ells] did all
due diligence. He is an incredibly driven person who, when he is interested in
something, focuses on every detail and goes in depth in his analysis and
investigation.”

Chipotle is the future of fast food, I think. Why won't all of the other chains do this??? Chipotle is buying sustainable, high-quality ingredients and charging maybe, what, a dollar more per meal than you would pay at McDonald's?

So, we made carnitas Saturday morning. I bought a three-pound piece of pork shoulder from Whole Foods (who happens to buy their pork from Niman Ranch!). You start off by tying up the pork - this keeps it together when you have to remove it later - seasoning with salt and pepper and searing it all over. The I moved the pork to a crock pot while I sweated onions and garlic, then added beef stock. That went into the crock pot with bay leaves, cloves, tomatoes, dried chipotles, and cumin. Four hours later in the crock pot, the meat was falling apart. I removed it and the sauce was finished by pureeing and adding oregano and cinnamon. That was tossed with the shredded pork. Awesome!

I've gotta make a plug for the Crock Pot! The weather in New York has finally warmed up, so when most NY apartments have no central a/c, having the oven on at 325 for three hours can really heat up a place. The crock pot is a great solution for braising. You don't have to worry about your place burning down and it doesn't put out all the excess heat that an oven would.