Recipe: Pork Carnitas

It's no secret that we love Mexican inspired foods at our house. This is another of our favourites - the long slow cooking adds a lovely rich flavour to the meat and the great thing with Carnitas is that you can use the meat for a number of different things - tacos or burritos, with some salad or rice and tortillas, or you can anglicise it and eat with some potato and veg!

However you have it, I hope you enjoy it.

1.5-2KL Boneless pork shoulder joint, trimmed of fat and cut into cubes about 2" square
1.5 tsps salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 onion, peeled and cut in half
2 bay leaves
1 tsp oregano
Juice from 2 limes
500ml water
1 orange - squeeze out the juice and reserve the 2 halves

Preheat oven to 150C

Combine all the ingredients in a large covered casserole that can also go on the stove top (including the 2 squeezed orange halves). Bring up to a simmer over a medium heat, cover and put in oven for about 2 hours - until the meat is falling apart.

Remove meat from the pan, discard everything else in the pan except the liquid - bring this to a boil over high heat for 20 mins until slightly thickened. Once reduced, add the pork back to the pot and stir to coat.

Tip the pork onto a foil lined baking tray and spread evenly, cook under a medium grill for about 5 minutes until just starting to crisp on the edges, flip the meat and cook for about 5 more minutes on the other side.