UA Culinary Corner – June 2015

Rachael Daniels
,

Development Associate, External Relations


 

 

Crockpot Carnitas


I love carnitas…really, any dish made with pork, but carnitas especially. I have long wanted to make them at home, but I have never found the courage. I don’t know if you have ever tried to make carnitas before or even just looked at a recipe, but it is terrifying. Cutting up and melting enough pork fat to cover a 4-pound hunk of meat?! Are you serious?! Then I found this recipe. It uses lemon and lime juice instead of lard and ends up giving the carnitas a wonderful fresh taste. Plus, you can do it in the crock pot, so it’s almost like someone else cooked for you while you were at work! Once it is done, I top it with a burnt pineapple salsa and try not to eat the whole thing.

Ingredients:


3-4 lbs. pork shoulder, boneless or bone-in
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 rounded tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

If you use a bone-in pork, shoulder you have two options for how to start. You can cut the meat off the bone and into cubes, or if it will fit in the pot whole, you can just leave it as is. Either way is fine because once it is done cooking, it will fall apart anyway. Once you have decided if you are going to cut it up or not, the hard part is over. Now you just mix the spices together, put them in a plastic bag with the meat and shake until coated. Then put the meat and the lemon and lime juice in the crockpot and cover. Cook on low for 12 hours or on high for eight.

Note: There will probably be quite a bit of juice and rendered fat in the pot so you might want to use a slotted spoon to dip it out. That way you can control the amount of juice.

Burnt Pineapple Salsa

Ingredients:


1 pineapple, peeled, cored, cut into ½ inch rounds
1 small red onion, minced
1 jalapeño, minced
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons of lime juice
Salt and pepper

In a pan, over medium-high heat, lightly char each side of the pineapple slices. Let them cool while you mince all the other ingredients. Then chop up the pineapple. Mix all ingredients together and top your carnitas. This is also good on its own with tortilla chips.

Summer Cocktail


There is no real name for this drink. I discovered it on a hot summer night in South Carolina when I told a bartender to just surprise me. In the South, summer can be brutal. It is sometimes still 90 degrees when the sun goes down and the humidity is something like 300%. I wanted something light and fresh to try and beat the heat. Typically in the South, that means a mint julep, but I wanted something new. The bartender came back with this and it has been my favorite summer cocktail ever since.

2 slices of cucumber, muddled
2 oz. of vodka
1 oz. of St. Germain
4 oz. of club soda

You can shake it over ice and strain it, or you can just put ice in the glass and drink it as is.