PROJECT: CARNITAS

My boyfriend's favorite food, hands down, is Carnitas. We scour the Mexican joints of LA with a strict repertoire of expectations when it comes to perfecting that which is PORK. And so, when we decided to take on this tedious culinary task on our own, we knew we had quite a bit to live up to.

First, we began with only the finest of ingredients - LARD!

The beginning of a more than 4 hour recipe...

Our pork was tended to endlessly, cooked multiple ways, and drooled over in anticipation all day.

By using our Dutch oven, we were able to slow cook the meat for a few hours, as well as eventually transfer it to the oven to add to its overall crispiness.

After searing and cooking on the stovetop, it was time to brew in the oven.

Stirring periodically gave us chances to sneak peaks!

 After spending the day cooking up our pork, we figured the only way to truly honor our meat was by putting it in yummy homemade tortillas, which we immediately set to work on in the last minutes of our Carnitas brew.

Chad is really good at kneading dough into submission, so thats always his job. Oh, along with mostly everything else too. I spectate, take pictures and eventually, dig in happily.

After "we" whipped up our dough, I set to work making our tortillas. Our set-up was starting to look pretty tasty at this point. I think our mouths were definitely watering! 

 The thinner, and larger the tortillas were stretched, the better they came out - aesthetically and taste-wise. Each one was like a little experiment in technique and timing.

I thought our tortillas looked pretty good, but unfortunately, they lacked in taste. Something about the recipe we chose offered no depth to the dough, it sort of tasted like flour and water.

I didn't end up taking a photo of our final meal (probably because I wanted to get to the stuffing-my-face part of it), but it was pretty amazing as a whole. Chad's really good at whipping up an awesome Mexican meal, whereas I am really good at eating it. 

All week long, in fact.