Every month several Talking Rock members take part in the Culinary Society, an event which allows members to prepare, make and enjoy dishes with that culinary staff at the Ranch House. Last week, Chef Richard Saldivar treated several members to a culinary experience, sharing lessons and tips from he had learned from his grandmother about the Cooking of Mexico. One member, Laurel Bailey, writes:
For the next several hours, we were introduced to ingredients, techniques, and flavors authentic to Mexico. We had corn and flour tortillas made from scratch, pork carnitas, chilaquiles (breakfast tacos), refried beans and rice, beef tongue tacos, chiles relleños, tamales de pollo (in both corn husks and banana leaves), and braised chicken in black mole sauce. The mole sauce was a revelation. I’ve always loved it, but I had no idea of the complexity of the ingredients, which surprisingly include (among 25 other things) a bit of chocolate and banana. What a labor of love!
In fact Chef shared several recipes with Culinary Society including one for Pork Carnitas. See below.
PORK CARNITAS
1 gallon lard for frying (or peanut oil)
5 pounds boneless pork shoulder or butt (cubed)
6 bay leaves
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 ½ teaspoons coarse ground black pepper
2 large onions, quartered
3 whole garlic cloves
1 whole orange
1 can Coke (optional)
Heat the lard in a deep roasting pan over medium heat. Stir in the pork, bay leaves, salt, pepper, onions, and garlic. Squeeze the orange into the mixture and drop in the orange halves. Add more lard if needed, to cover all the ingredients.
Cook until the pork is tender enough to pull apart with a fork, 45 minutes to 1 hour. (If you want to add a sweet finish to the pork, put the Coke in now and cook for another 2 minutes. Heat must still be on medium or the sugar in the Coke with burn.) Discard the orange, onion, and garlic; strain the pork cubes from the lard using a slotted spoon.
Read Laurel's post on the event here.