Carnitas

Description

Contributed by Pressurecookerrecipes Y-Group

Ingredients

• 3 lb pork shoulder (can be either with or without bones)
• chicken broth - enough to almost cover the meat
• 1 tbs chopped cilantro (fresh)
• 1 tbs chopped cumin (I usually use dried out of the bottle)
• 1 onion quartered

Procedures

1. Cut pork shoulder into big chunks and put in pressure cooker with chicken broth, cilantro, cumin and onion.
2. The usual caveats apply about putting enough liquid in and not over filling the pressure cooker then bring up to pressure and cook on low for an hour.
3. I have a cheap pressure cooker with the single weight, so I just stick it on and cook it while it's rocking slowly.
4. After an hour, I take it off and usually use the cold water method to cool it and open the pot.
5. At this point you can just put everything in a container and refrigerate, or freeze to finish off later, or continue.
6. There are 2 ways to do the rest — put the meat under a broiler and crisp it up, or actually fry it in lard.
7. You can guess which one tastes the best! my wife really liked it the first way until I fried it one time, and now I always use the lard because it's so good.
8. When frying,just put some lard (a chunk about the size of a child's fist) in a big non-stick skillet, then start putting the meat (which is falling apart tender chunks from the pressure cooker already) in the skillet — I put enough to cover the bottom, kind of smush it down and let it fry until it's brown and crispy on the bottom — maybe 6 – 8 minutes.
9. Then I flip it over with a spatula, cook another couple of minutes and it's ready.
10. It comes out kind of crispy and soft at the same time.
11. salt to your own taste as you're cooking it.
12. Serve with some refried beans (and you can get low or no fat and pretend this is a lo-fat meal) and some salsa and corn or flour tortillas.