First random cooks of the year

[Jonas-Switzerland]

First up, some ice cream


And later that day:


Tomato sauce? What tomato sauce!? I've had it with these baseless accusations!

Then the first time firing up the WSM for a hot smoke! Some pork butt for carnitas, and some beef round cap. Weather turned pretty nasty after 1.5 hours. I pulled everything off, put the pork inside a pot and fried the beef.


I did not take pictures, because well, life got the better of me. It was the first time I could fire up thr spirit and... Mold. It took up lots of mold. So I scraped, cursed, and finished the cook as quickly as I could.



Cooking some carnitas for dinner. Not as amazing as the carnitas I've seen here. But its getting there.

 

[Kevin L (NKY)]

Must good as your buddy thinks so....

 

[AndyK]

I have never really figured out how to make carnitas on a wsm.
Can you share how you are you doing it?

 

[Tim Campbell]

Looks excellent, Jonas.

 

[Jonas-Switzerland]

I have never really figured out how to make carnitas on a wsm.
Can you share how you are you doing it?

Never said I have . I haven't even figured out carnitas. The mexican restaurants here don't serve carnitas. And we don't have a tradition of cooking fatty pork. I don't really have a reference point. So taste wise the results were good for me. They could be better, but I don't know what direction I would like to go with it.

The cook I imitated was from Michael Richards,
https://tvwbb.com/threads/carnitas-its-been-too-long.99784/
And I somewhat used the recipe from the german translation of Jamie Purviance. Mainly the rub. The german translation tells you to rub the meat, sear it, and then braise it in the oven or grill of your choice. Then it tells you to reserve the fat of the braise, and use it to fry the pulled pork.

Similar to Michael, I cut up the meat into chunks, and smoked it a bit on the WSM. I wanted to go for 3 hours, but the weather got me. So I braised ot directly on the stove, shredded, and used the braising liquid, not the fat, to fry.

I like the fry with the liquid, and I also enjoy the cut pork. More rub, more flavor.

We then used it for fajitas. Which again was good, but next time I want to mix it more with veggies. We at some point had enough of the fat.

 

[AndyK]

My bad.
Micheal Richards cook is one I’ve tried to mimic before without great success.
We have carnicerias (Mexican meat markets) in California that serve carnitas that are to die for that have eluded me.
One of my co workers named Nacho used to cook a batch for us at work for the holiday party.
It was so so good.
He used a big monster sized copper wok filled with goodness.
This thing was big enough to bathe a small goat with that he used to turn out his feast for us.
I’m not quite there with his copy cat recipe but I’m working on it and think I’m close.
I found a huge CI pan in my shop that I plan to use in the near future.
I think that will work for us.
I hope so because I priced them large copper wok things and wow.

 

[ChuckO]

Looks very tasty, and the cat is cute. Hopefully you gave her some, or you might wake up with your throat torn out and and on the floor, LOL

 

[Richard S]

That’s a good start to the year!