Pork Carnitas with Persimmons, Butter and Cinnamon
It’s great to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes. Beatrice got a bag full of ripe, freshly picked persimmons from someone so I decided to do a dish I fist did almost 4 years ago: Carnitas & Persimmon with Cinnamon. I’ve since done a couple of other dishes using pork and fruit (Carnitas with Sweet Potato and Cinnamon Apples / Pork & Fruit: Good Together). One great thing about doing food blogging is it’s like my own personal recipe book. I can just look things up and do them again.
This is where laughing at myself comes in. Every now and then I look something up and I’m like, “I did what!?” Same here. I made that way more complicated than it needed to be by doing the persimmons separately, boiling it in stock.
So here’s how it’s done today.
Ingredients
Carnitas (Trader Joe’s in this case), persimmons, butter, cinnamon
If you can’t get ready made carnitas, you could do it yourself or, roast pork will do (crock pot with nothing but the pork—no liquids, no herbs or spices—works great).
Instructions
Chop up the pork (1 lb) and the two persimmons, 8 skinny pats of butter, and I sprinkled the cinnamon through a wire mesh in order to distribute evenly.
400F oven, 20 minutes, turning at the halfway point (and I added a bit more cinnamon, too).
All done: Too easy
It’s so damn easy, so damn good. Beatrice and I ate the whole thing save for just a tiny bit I’ll finish off at lunch.
With an extra pat of butter
Enjoy. All the images can be clicked for the larger and higher resolution versions. Pass it around if you like it.
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“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of carnitas, rising up through the air.”
Slainte
You ever had canitas done in the traditional way, which is basically to boil them in a pot of lard?
Had some about a year ago at a winery party catered by real live Mexicans. :) We have a couple of excellent authentic restaurants around here and their carnitas are killer.
Here’s the thing. This has been quite serendipitous.
Before you replied, I was wondering if I could use chopped up just-cooked belly of pork as carnitas. I had two thoughts, both unresolved.
What, other than cooking apple, I might substitute for persimmons;
and
what to do about the liquid lard at the bottom of my crockpot.
I guess your observation that traditionally, carnitas are boiled in lard answers the 2nd thought.
Any suggestions about the 1st one ?
BTW, Rich, I suspect your approach to cooking is similar to mine: mix stuff together so that flavours blend, and then eat it. If there’s some over, keep it and eat it later!
I have adopted some of your ideas: particularly beefy things and egg dishes – loved the recent “baked egg”.
Slainte
LR:
Well, there’s a couple of other posts I linked to using apples & sweet potato in one case…
freetheanimal.com/2010/05/carnitas-with-sweet-potato-and-cinnamon-apples.html
and cherries and oranges in another…
freetheanimal.com/2010/06/pork-fruit-good-together.html
Pork carnitas or roast simply goes great with fruit. I suspect there’s fewer fruits it might not go well with than does. if adding cinnamon, I’d stick to the fruits cinnamon goes well with. Not with citrus.
Go hog wild.
Yeah, right, live wild, free & high on the hog.
“High above me, flyin’ wild & free” – Bob Seger.
Had to look up carnitas online and found an easy recipe yesterday to make in oven, just cut up belly pork and put into dish covered with foil in oven for one and half hours, then take out, cut off some of fat, but leave some behind and roast without foil for another hour…can’t find the recipe online now. But I think that was the gist of it. Take out and shred, would this be the point that you start your recipe Richard? I take your recipe had ready-made Carnitas?
Yep, ready made carnitas.
I think butternut squash would go with the cinnamon, butter and carnitas too. Going to give that a go this week. Yummm.
I think the carnitas recipe stated roasted in the oven uncovered at the end for 30 mins not an hour.
Keep in mind the finished carnitas I began with were cold, from the fridge.
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