Carnitas with Purple Slaw

If you're unfamiliar, carnitas is a kind of pulled pork, but without the barbecue sauce. It's our favorite taco filling here at the farm. And it's definitely what we're eating if it's 49 degrees and raining. Making a batch of carnitas is a great way to make feeding a crowd easy. They also freeze well if you’re into leftovers.

Ingredients

One pasture-raised pork roast, 3 to 4 lbs

1 teaspoon fine sea salt (use more if your salt is coarse)

3 tablespoons whole cumin

1/2 cup lemon or lime juice

A tomato or two, optional

2 sprigs fresh oregano

Purple Kraut

Tortillas

Procedure

You’ll want some sort of heavy pan you can use under high heat. My instrument of choice these days is an InstantPot, but you can use any kind of sturdy pot with a good lid.

Salt the pork on all sides, then sear it. Add the whole cumin seeds, taking care that they make contact with the surface of the hot pan. This will help them to toast well.

Add the citrus juice, oregano, and tomato, if you’re using it. Using an InstantPot? Seal the lid and set the manual setting to 120 minutes. Using a regular pot? Add an additional 2 cups water or stock, close the lid well, and simmer for a couple of hours, or until the meat can be shredded with a fork. You’ll want to monitor the liquid so it doesn’t evaporate out. A crock pot also works very well for the final cooking steps.

Serve the shredded pork on tortillas with a few grace notes of purple kraut.