The Mexican dish carnitas is legendary. This delicate, well-seasoned pork is ideal for tacos, salads, and more.However, perfecting this wonderful dish's flavor is only half the job. You must choose the appropriate pig cuts to produce the soft, melt-in-your-mouth results that make carnitas a favorite.
Martinez cooks with another unusual cut. Pig's feet—an undervalued pork cut—add a unique flavor. He mixes them with the shoulder and belly because "the foot adds a lot more of that velvety, unctuous texture and umami, but it also gives you that little hint of what you would find in Mexico."
Martinez offers fantastic cooking suggestions. "You could use a pound of belly, one small foot, and then one to two pounds of shoulder," adds he. "And you could even go a little leaner on the shoulder because you've got a lot more fat from the belly and the pig foot.
He also recommends cooking the seasoned meat in a Dutch oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for four to seven hours or overnight."Basically, you're cooking it until everything is literally falling apart," adds he. "You push a spoon into it and it's like soft butter."
For feet, Martinez suggests removing bones before cooking and using the skin to make golden fried chicharrones. He avoids lard because the meat usually has enough fat (which he skims off and uses later, like duck fat).
Seasoning with salt and pepper is his preference, but orange, garlic, onion, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chile can enhance taste.