Carnitas

• 4 lbboneless pork shoulder · also sold as pork butt, outer fat cap trimmed to 1/4 inch
• 1 tbspkosher salt · for the overnight dry brine
• 2 tspground cumin
• 2 tspdried Mexican oregano · regular oregano works
• 1/2 tspblack pepper · coarsely ground
• 1 wholewhite onion · quartered
• 6 clovesgarlic · smashed, skins on
• 1 wholeorange · juiced, then both spent halves into the pot
• 2 wholebay leaves
• 1 small stickcinnamon · optional, it rounds the orange out
• 1 cupwater or unsalted chicken stock
• 2 tbspreserved rendered pork fat · skimmed from the braise, for the broiler stage
• 2 wholelimes · cut into wedges, to finish
• 1/2 cupcilantro · roughly chopped, to finish

Method

1. 1

   Salt it the night before, and cut it into chunks

   Cut the shoulder into pieces about two inches across, which is the step most recipes skip. A whole roast cooks unevenly and gives you almost no surface to crisp later, while chunks give you eight times the edge. Toss them with the salt, cumin, oregano and pepper and leave them uncovered in the fridge overnight, or at minimum for an hour on the counter. The salt gets into the meat instead of sitting on it, and the surface dries, which matters at the broiler stage.

2. 2

   Use one cup of liquid, not a pot full

   Confit means submerging in fat, and it is why restaurant carnitas taste the way they do and why home versions turn into a greasy project. Pork shoulder at this weight releases well over a cup of its own fat and a good deal of water during three hours in a covered pot, so it ends up braising in its own rendering. Start with one cup of water or stock, the onion, garlic, bay, cinnamon, the orange juice and the two spent halves. That is enough.

3. 3

   300F for three hours, and judge it with a fork

   Lid on, oven at 300F, three hours. Do not go hotter to save time; above about 325F the exterior tightens before the collagen has converted and you get dry meat that still shreds. It is done when a fork pushed into a chunk twists with no resistance, which usually lands between two hours forty and three hours twenty depending on how the shoulder was cut. If it fights you, give it another twenty minutes and check again rather than pulling it early.

4. 4

   Skim the fat, and keep two tablespoons of it

   Lift the pork out with a slotted spoon and pour the liquid into a wide bowl or a fat separator. The fat rises within five minutes and you can spoon it straight off. Keep two tablespoons for the crisping and refrigerate or discard the rest, which is what pulls this from a very rich dish to 390 calories a serving. Fish out and discard the onion, garlic skins, orange halves, bay and cinnamon. Save the defatted braising juices, they are the best thing in the pot.

5. 5

   Shred into shards, not threads

   Pull each chunk into two or three pieces with your hands or two forks and stop there. Carnitas want big irregular shards with intact edges, because those edges are what crisp and what give you the contrast between crunchy outside and soft inside. Shredding it to a fine pulp like barbecue pork gives you a uniform texture that goes from wet to dry with nothing in between, and it is the most common reason home carnitas taste flat.

6. 6

   Broiler on high, one layer, no crowding

   Spread the shards over a rimmed sheet pan in a single layer with gaps between them, drizzle over the two tablespoons of reserved fat, and put it about six inches under a broiler set to high. Eight to ten minutes, turning the pan once at the halfway mark. You are looking for dark brown tips and a few genuinely crunchy pieces, not uniform colour. Two pans is better than one crowded pan, because crowded meat steams and stays pale.

7. 7

   Then put the juices back

   Straight out of the broiler, spoon three or four tablespoons of the defatted braising liquid over the pan and toss once. This is the move that separates good carnitas from dry ones: you have driven moisture off the surface to build crust, and then you return flavour without softening what you just made. Do it at the pan, not at the table, and do it just before serving. Then lime and cilantro, both off the heat.

8. 8

   Storage, and how to reheat without ruining the crisp

   Braised and shredded but not yet broiled, it keeps four days in the fridge with its juices, and three months frozen in portions with a few spoons of liquid in each bag. That is the right stage to store at, because you can then broil only what you are eating and the crisp is always fresh. Reheating already-broiled carnitas in a microwave undoes all of it; use a hot dry skillet for three minutes instead.

9. 9

   What is actually in the 390 calories

   Pork shoulder is a fatty cut and that is why it works, but most of that fat ends up in the pot rather than on the plate. Skimming the braise and returning only two tablespoons is worth roughly 150 calories a serving compared to tossing the meat in all of it, and it costs nothing in flavour because the flavour is water-soluble and stayed in the juices. Trimming the outer cap to a quarter inch before cooking accounts for most of the rest.