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[\\”Little meats\\” with big flavor.](https://preview.redd.it/kds346vkhlr81.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7bec313af2824d29e283a10d3c0ddd846680ddd8)
[Look at that texture. Look at it.](https://preview.redd.it/difia9hmhlr81.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2f0333932ade6bfdb9ec52850b82201290363bbd)
I started with [Kenji’s “No Waste Tacos de Carnitas with Salsa Verde”](https://www.seriouseats.com/no-waste-tacos-de-carnitas-with-salsa-verde-recipe) as a baseline concept but modified for laziness and what I had on-hand. I didn’t bother making the salsa. You can actually do a good amount of the up-front work ahead of time and then finish and serve later, say, as a weeknight meal.
# Ingredients I used
* A whole piece of bone-in pork shoulder (a lot more meat than the linked recipe, 8-10 pounds)
* A whole onion
* Two oranges
* Two sticks of cinnamon
* A few cloves of garlic (I used four big ones, but it’s garlic, you use as much as your little heart desires)
* Two tablespoons kosher salt
# Prepping it all
Preheat your oven to 275° F.
Cut the bone out of the pork shoulder as best you can. If you leave small amounts of meat on it, no big deal. You can make a stock/broth out of it if you like (which I did, just simmer it in a saucepan with a chopped onion and enough water to cover everything, for like 10-12 hours).
Chop the de-boned pork into small-medium chunks, like, maybe big enough to fit in your hand comfortably. (What, don’t you regularly pick up comfortable fistfuls of raw pork for fun?)
Cut the oranges and onion into quarters, and break each cinnamon stick into three or four pieces with your hands.
Place all the cut-up pork into the biggest baking dish you have (I broke out my big turkey roasting pan for this) or I guess you could split it among multiple smaller ones. Sprinkle it as evenly as you can with the kosher salt and then get in there with your hands to mix the salt all into the pork chunks.
Nestle the quartered oranges, onion, garlic, and cinnamon among the chunks.
# Cooking Round One
Cover your pork-laden baking dish(es) with foil, and place into the oven for at least three and a half hours. It actually took me more like five and a half, or six hours. You are looking for the meat to be fork tender.
Once it is done, remove from the oven. Pluck out all non-pork elements from the dish and discard. Then, place all the pork into a large strainer/colander over a large bowl. Let it drain for 10-15 minutes.
Once the pork is drained, pull it apart into smaller pieces. You don’t need to zealously pour it but breaking it down a little bit will give you more smol crispy bits later.
Skim the rendered fat off the top of the drained liquid and mix it back into the pork, or store the pork and the liquid in bowls in the fridge (which will solidify the fat into a puck for easier “harvesting”) if you’re making it ahead of time.
# Cooking Round Two
Place an oven rack about four inches from the broiler and then set it to “Hi” (it’s so nice to be greeted by your kitchen appliances). Get your pork distributed among broiler-friendly baking dishes or foil-lined, rimmed baking sheets; you will likely need to broil all that meat in separate batches (at least, I did) so as not to layer it too deeply.
If you stored the fat separately to solidify, top the pork with it now. Just big chunks of solid lard, spaced out on top of the meat. It’ll melt under the broiler in seconds and the meat will fry in it. Yum!
Place the pork under the broiler for six minutes to brown and crisp. Before the first six minutes is up, you’ll likely hear some delicious-sounding sizzling and snapping as it begins to fry in earnest. Remove and stir to expose the un-broiled sides of the meat chunks. Then back under the broiler for another six minutes. It should be just short of burning, nice and browned and incredibly crisp. Remove from the oven and cover with foil if you need to keep it warm for a while. Repeat this step with as many full dishes/sheets as you have.
Serve immediately by itself with salt and pepper, in a low-carb wrap, over cauliflower rice, whatever you want.
Dining and Cooking