Carnitas (Pork Confited in Lard, Then Crisped)

Variations

• Michoacán style: the home of carnitas, where it is made in a copper cazo. Copper spreads heat evenly and cools slowly, so the temperature never spikes. The milk or condensed milk and the orange are also regional.
• Cuts: at a carnitería you order by cut. Maciza is lean meat, costilla rib, buche stomach, cuero skin, surtida a mix. Shoulder alone is fine, but a little skin added raises the gelatine and keeps everything moister.
• The same principle as duck confit: French confit is also cooked submerged in fat at a low temperature and crisped at the end. In fact carnitas began as the Mexican name for the French dish rillons de Tours.
• Against char siu: the same cut, but that one is marinated in soy and roasted dry while this is submerged in fat. A liquid shares flavour with the meat; fat keeps the flavour inside it.
• Against suyuk and jokbal — and this is the key contrast: water stops at 100°C, and the water-soluble part of the meat leaches out into it (which is exactly why that broth is good). Fat is not water: it is not capped at 100°C, and more importantly there is no water for the flavour to dissolve into. That is why hours of cooking give such different results with the same pork.
• Against tacos al pastor: both are pork for tacos, but that one is sliced thin, marinated and grilled on a vertical spit; this is cooked in chunks in fat.
• Leftovers: cool them and pour the lard over to seal out the air and they keep for a long time. That is what confit was originally for — preservation, before refrigeration.

Tips

• It is submerged in oil and it is not frying. Frying works because water bursting out as steam keeps the oil from getting in, and that needs something like 170°C. At 90°C none of that happens. The fat is only a medium for carrying heat — one you can set to any temperature you like, unlike water (deep-frying).
• Which is why nothing leaches out. Boil meat and its water-soluble compounds move into the water. In fat there is no water for them to move into, so they stay in the meat. That is why this tastes as concentrated as it does.
• Do not skip the second phase. Stop at two and a half hours and you have soft boiled pork. What makes carnitas carnitas is the last fifteen minutes, when the fat finally becomes a fryer.
• Read the temperature off the bubbles. With no thermometer: a bubble breaking the surface every few seconds is about 90°C. A steady sizzle means it is too hot (heat control).
• Salt it the day before. That step is about drying, not seasoning. Dry meat browns quickly at the end; wet meat will not start to colour until the water has gone.
• Keep it submerged. If you are short of fat, move to a narrower pot rather than cooking less meat.
• The orange and the milk make the colour. Both bring sugar, and that sugar browns once the temperature climbs. Condensed milk is the same effect turned up, which is why it burns so readily.
• Pull it coarsely. Shredded fine, the crisp edges get lost in the moist interior and go soft. Pieces about the size of two finger joints are right.
• Never throw the lard away. Strained and chilled it keeps for months, the next batch is better for it, and it fries potatoes beautifully.
• Do not let it sit once pulled. The crispness is gone within minutes. If it was made ahead, give it a moment back in a dry hot pan as you serve (serving temperature).