Ah, carnitas – those melty, tender, bits of pig cooked in its own juices. I do love them and continue to refine my recipe. This version uses slightly larger chunks of pork shoulder than I normally use, then simmered in citrus juice until the fat renders and the meat starts to get all brown and crispy. The pickled onions are a common Mexican garnish and really add a tangy compliment to the meat.
Carnitas
2 boneless pork shoulder roasts (aka Boston Butt), about 14 pounds
Juice of 3 oranges (about 1 cup)
Juice of 2 limes (about 4 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground cumin
I set my Big Green Egg up for an 8 hour cook over indirect heat at 300°F. I used the plate setter with a trivet on it to diffuse the heat and keep the bottom from burning.
While the BGE was heating up, I cut the pork into big (4-inch) chunks, discarding any nasty pieces of connective tissue, but keeping all of the fat.
I combined all of the ingredients into a 12-quart Dutch oven, put the oven on the grill and let it simmer for an hour. I gave it a stir and then let it go for another hour. I kept checking and stirring once an hour until most of the liquid had evaporated and the pork had started to fry in its own fat (about 5 hours). Then I checked it every 15 minutes to make sure it was getting crispy, but not becoming dry or burned. Total cook time was just over 6 hours.
Pickled Onions
1 red onion, halved lengthwise, ends removed, and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
Juice of 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
Salt and pepper to taste
I put the onions in a saucepan, added just enough water to cover, and boiled until tender (about 1 minute). I remove them from heat, rinsed with cold water, and drained.
I put the onions in a plastic container, added the lime juice and vinegar, and seasoned to taste with a couple of grinds of black pepper and about a teaspoon of kosher salt. I sealed the container and stored it in the fridge for about an hour before serving.
I had such luck with the Cherry-Glazed Chicken that I thought I would continue with the meat-meets-sweet-spicy-and-savory theme. The noodle dish is a great complement to the chops and is quick and easy to make.
Apricot-Glazed Pork Chops
6 boneless pork chops
1 (10 ounce) jar apricot jam
2 apricots, seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons soy sauce or gluten-free Bragg’s Aminos
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
Mix the jam, soy sauce, vinegar, sweet chili sauce, garlic, and ginger in a sauce pan over medium heat until blended (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat and let cool.
Put the chops in a zip-top bag and cover with the marinade. Toss to coat. Squeeze the air out of the bag, seal it, and put it in the fridge to marinate for at least 4 hours, overnight is better.
Set up your grill for a direct cook over medium (350°F) heat.
Remove the chops from the marinade. Save the marinade into a small saucepan. Add the apricots and and bring to a boil over medium heat. Let boil for about 3 minutes, until the marinade has thickened to the point that it will coat the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat and let cool.
Pour off 1/2 cup of the marinade to use for basting the chops. Save the rest to pour over the chops when they are done.
Season the chops on both sides with a little salt and pepper.
Grill the chops 10 minutes on one side, flip and grill another 5 minutes on the second side. Brush with marinade and grill for 5 more minutes. Flip, brush, and grill another 5 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the pork hits 140°F.
Remove the chops from the grill and let rest 5 minutes. Drizzle with the reserved marinade before serving.
Peanut Noodles
You can put it together in advance and stash it in the fridge. Just take it out early so that it comes to room temperature for serving.
3/4 pound dried spaghetti (use corn or rice noodles to make it gluten-free)
4 green onions, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips
1/2 cup snow peas
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
In a blender, combine peanut butter, soy sauce, water, garlic, vinegar, sesame oil, honey, pepper flakes, and ginger. Blend until smooth (about a minute) then pour into a large bowl.
Cook the pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until al dente (if you are going to let this sit in the fridge, shorten the cooking time for a little firmer pasta). Drain into a colander and rinse with cold water.
Add the pasta, veggies, and sesame seeds to the dressing. Toss to combine.
All I wanted out of Sunday was baby back ribs and a nap. That’s not asking for much, is it? I had a relatively uneventful day in front of me, and I sure wanted to keep it that way. I didn’t want to do a whole lot of prep work and I really didn’t even want to mess around with much actual cooking, but I did have a serious hankering for some ribs.
So to that end, I did almost nothing to prepare the ribs for the Big Green Egg – just removed the membrane on the bone side of the ribs and rubbed in a generous coating of Dizzy Pig’s Dizzy Dust into both sides of them about an hour before they went on the smoker.
I set up my Big Green Egg for an indirect cook at 225 to 250°F. I filled the firebox with lump charcoal and used an inverted plate setter to diffuse the heat and a drip pan with a little water in it to catch the fat.
I lit the charcoal just in the center, and once the temperature hit 250°F in the dome, I added a couple of chunks of smoking wood (guava, this time) and arranged the ribs bone side down on the grate.
Then I closed the lid, walked away, and settled in for a nap – it was lovely. When I woke up 45 minutes later, I stuck my head out and checked to make sure the dome temp was still at 250°F. Yep, perfect. I went back inside and proceeded to ignore the ribs for another 2 hours – I read the paper, had another cup of coffee, hung some curtain rods for my dear wife… typical Sunday afternoon.
When the ribs had been on for 3 hours total, I took a peek at them – looking good. I flipped them meat side down. I let them cook for another hour, and flipped them back meat side up.
After the ribs had been on 4 1/2 hours total, I started checking for doneness. Ribs are generally done when a full slab will almost fold in half and start to crack when you pick up one end with a pair of tongs. These weren’t quite there yet.
I gave them another 30 minutes and checked again. The meat had started to pull back from the end of the bones and a gentle tug on a couple of adjacent bones showed that they would come apart easily.
I brushed them with a thick coat of Sticky Pig Barbecue Sauce and let them cook for another 15 minutes. I sauced them lightly again, cooked them for another 15 minutes, then removed them from the smoker and let them sit 10 minutes before serving.
To be honest, these are not the best ribs I’ve ever made. But they were tasty, the nap was great, and it was nice, relaxed day. It’s hard to beat that combination.
I volunteered (at least that’s what they told me I did) to do pulled pork for a crowd of 120 at a graduation party. As the date approached, I had the following thoughts:
How much pig? Rub? Sauce?
How long will it take to cook?
How am I going to store and serve it?
Are you nuts?!!!
How Much Pig & Fixin’s?
Many thanks to Celtic Wolf and the rest of the gang at the Big Green Egg Forum for helping me figure out the quantities.
The first thing I had to figure out was how many pulled pork sandwiches we’d be serving. The host estimated 120 people (50/50 men and women), and she wanted to serve smaller slider-style buns. It’s an afternoon event, there’s plenty of other food, and this isn’t going to be anybody’s main meal of the day.
I figured we’d need 180 sandwiches, as about half the folks will probably take 2. At 3 ounces of meat per sandwich, that meant 33.75 pounds of finished product. Since you lose about 40% of the product in cooking, that meant I needed to start with roughly 58 pounds of raw pork butt. At about 8 pounds a piece, that meant 7 butts, but I did 8 just in case.
For rub, I figured 2 ounces of rub per butt, so I just went ahead and ordered a 2 pound bag of Dizzy Pig Dizzy Dust. We go though a ton of anyway, so I might as well get the bulk price.
For sauce, I gave Sticky Pig a try. At 1-2 tablespoons per sandwich, I ordered 2 quarts of their regular, 1 pint of mustard, and 1 pint of jalapeño. I also made up 1 quart of finishing sauce to use while pulling the pig.
The Cook
The conventional way to do pulled pork is low ‘n’ slow – 250°F for 16-20 hours until the meat hits 210°F internal and starts to fall apart. This is how I’ve usually done my butts and have gotten great results. However, due to scheduling and logistics, I knew in advance that I wasn’t going to have time to do the butts this way.
I experimented in reducing cooking times by cutting the butts in half. That worked well, but 2 halves take up more room than 1 butt. With 4 butts at a time going on the Big Green Egg, I just didn’t have the room.
Sources on the BGE Forum (who shall remain anonymous) suggested cooking the butts at much higher temp and then finishing them in foil – basically roasting and then braising to shorten the total cooking time. Based on their suggestions, I came up with a method that not only cut my cooking times by two-thirds, but also gave me more control over when things had to be done.
The BGE will hold 4 butts at a time, so I cooked 2 batches. Here’s one batch all seasoned up with rub.
I set up for a 5 hour indirect cook at 350°F. This meant filling the firebox with lump and using a plate setter and drip pan to diffuse the heat. When the cooker was up to temp, I added some chucks of pecan wood for smoke.
I put the 4 butts on, using an extended grid to give me some room and made sure to leave some space between them on the grate so they didn’t act like one big piece of meat.
I cooked them for about 4 hours at 350°F, until the butts had developed a nice dark bark on the outside and hit 160°F on the inside.
I removed the butts from the BGE and loaded them all up into a large roasting pan. I added 2 cups of apple juice, and sealed the pan with a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil.
The pan full of butts went into the oven set at 250°F. I baked them for a little over 2 hours, until their internal temperature hit 210°F. I removed the pan from the oven and let them cool for another hour.
After they had cooled a bit, my dear wife helped me pull the pork using a pair of bear paws to remove all the remaining inedible bits and separate the meat into tasty morsels. I added a little finishing sauce mixed with pan drippings as we were working with the meat to help keep it moist.
We portioned the pulled pork off into 4 large zip-top bags and put them in the freezer. The morning of the big event, we loaded 3 of the 4 bags into a portable roaster set to 250°F and let it thaw and come to serving temp.
The Verdict
The party went off without a hitch and the pulled pork was a big hit. It was fun (and a little embarrassing) to have folks hunt me down to tell me how good it was. Obviously cooking the butts hot and fast and then braising them in the oven didn’t do much (if anything) to harm the taste.
We went through about two-thirds of the pulled pork. I think that was mostly due to this being an afternoon event, so most folks had already eaten lunch. The remainder went into our host’s freezer so she won’t have to worry about cooking for a while. If I had to do it again (and it looks like I will in 3 years when the younger brother graduates), I’d do the same amount just because it’s better to have too much than too little and you can always find a home for the leftovers.
The Sticky Pig sauces were VERY tasty – they used 1 quart of the regular, almost a 1 pint of jalapeño, and just about 1/4 of the mustard. I’ll be ordering more of this sauce soon.
Lessons Learned
Plan on feeding the crew – there were a dozen of us there early to set up the food and tent. Of course everybody had to sample the pork and have a sandwich or 2 before the festivities started.
Not everybody takes a bun –
Smaller is better – I would go with 2 roasters for serving next time as it’s hard to keep the meat evenly hot in one fully-loaded one. I did a lot of stirring to keep things from burning or drying out. Next time I’ll split the load and start one about 2 hours before the other so I don’t have so much meat sitting out for so long.
Pack extra finishing sauce – some of the meat started to dry out and I moistened it with a little diluted barbecue sauce. I’d bring more finishing sauce next time to do that job.
Spaghetti tongs – these were the best tools for letting guests serve themselves.
Was I Nuts?
Yes and no – it was a bit of work, but the payoff of seeing happy people digging into piles of pig was well worth it.
That being said, this is NOT the start of my catering career. I admire the pitmasters who do this for 500 people on a weekend, but I just couldn’t do that. It’d be like the days when I worked in photography and got so sick and tired of it that I didn’t do any personal work anymore. It’s a great hobby, but I sure don’t ever want it to become a job.
The car is packed – I’ve got just shy of 40 pounds of pulled pork in the cooler, 3 quarts of sauce, 2 roasters, and we’re headed off for the graduation party that I got talked into catering. Wish me luck. Will post the full cook when I get back.
I have a big cook coming up – 8 butts worth of pulled pork for a crowd of 120. I plan on doing them 4 at a time on my Big Green Egg. In preparation, I’ve been playing with ways at cutting down my cooking time without affecting the quality of the end product.
A typical boneless pork shoulder roast (Boston butt) runs 8-10 pounds and takes about 2 hours per pound to cook at 225°F. So I’m looking at 2 x 16-20 hour cooks. For this cook I wanted to try cutting the butt in half. This increases my surface area, meaning more bark (the tasty dark outside, a good thing), greater chance of drying out (a bad thing), and only an 8 hour cook (a very good thing).
The Cook
The night before, I cut the butt in half and dusted it heavily with my basic pig rub. I wrapped in in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight.
The next morning I set up the BGE for an indirect cook of at least 10 hours at 225°F. This meant filling the firebox with lump and using a platesetter and drip pan to diffuse the heat. When the cooker was up to temp I added some chucks of guava wood for smoke.
I put the 2 butt halves (cheeks?) on, making sure to leave some space between them on the grate so they didn’t act like one big piece of meat.
6 hours into the cook I started checking for doneness. Pork butts are done when the collagen and connective tissue has melted into tasty gelatin and the meat literally starts to fall apart. I let these get to 190°F internal in the bigger half, then wrapped them together in a double layer of heavy duty aluminum foil and put them back on the cooker for another hour or so until they reached 210°F internal.
I took them off the cooker and let them rest in the foil for an hour. When they had cooled a little, I pulled the meat apart using a couple of bear paws to separate the fibers. The idea is to remove all the remaining inedible bits, break the meat down into bite-sized pieces, and ensure an even distribution of the chewy bark. I added a little Lexington finishing sauce as I was working with the meat to help keep it moist.
The Verdict
The end result was very tasty, and (aside from more chewy brown bits of bark) not much different from other batches of pulled pork that I’ve made in the past with whole butts. I got both the shorter cooking time and more bark, so win-win ;).
The only downside was that 2 halves took up more room on the grate than 1 whole butt would. That may end up being a problem when it comes to trying to stuff 4 butts into the Egg. But even if that’s the case, this was still a great way to put pulled pork on the dinner table without having to do an all-night cook.
Pork, water, salt – that’s it for this simple batch of carnitas.
I set up my Big Green Egg for an indirect cook – filling the firebox with lump charcoal and using the plate setter with a trivet on it to diffuse the heat. Once the Egg had stabilized at 300°F, I added a couple of chunks of hickory for smoke.
I cut an 8 pound boneless pork shoulder roast (Boston butt) into 3-inch chunks, discarding any big pieces of connective tissue, but keeping all of the fat. I put the meat into a 12-quart Dutch oven, mixed in 2 tablespoon of kosher salt, and added a cup of water.
I put the Dutch oven on the grill uncovered, closed the lid, and let it simmer undisturbed for about an hour. The idea is to have the water render the fat out of the meat, then when the water evaporates the meat starts to fry in it’s own lovely grease.
I gave it a stir, and let it continue to cook for another hour until the liquid had cooked down and the meat began to brown. There was enough fat rendered from this batch to brown the meat, but had there not been, I would have added a little lard or peanut oil.
Once the meat started to brown I started checking and stirring about every 15 minutes until the meat was crispy, but not dry or burned. The meat was done after about 3 hours total cooking time.
Here it is served on hot corn tortillas with a big glob of guacamole. Heaven.
A little over a year ago we moved to a lower-carb, no-trans-fat, no-high-fructose-corn-syrup, gluten-free, don’t-eat-it-if-you-can’t-pronounce-it way of eating. While it makes eating more complicated, it’s been worth it and we’re both feeling a whole lot better.
Cleaning up our diet doesn’t mean we don’t have a few guilty pleasures – bacon grease being one of them. We keep a jar of greasy goodness in our fridge and use it to enhance the flavor of a whole range of foods:
Fry eggs – just adding a teaspoon or so to the olive oil we usually use really bumps up the flavor of the eggs and helps get those brown, crispy edges.
Use it in place of butter in corn bread recipes.
Saute greens in it – spinach and garlic wilted in a little bacon grease with a touch of sugar and vinegar makes a quick side salad.
