Carnitas Michoacanas (Michoacán-Style Confit Pork)

// SUPPLY LIST

// OPERATIONS

1. 1 Cut the pork deliberately large: shoulder into 7-8 cm chunks, belly into 5 cm strips with the skin left on, ribs into single bones, skin into 5 cm squares, and the buche, if using, into 5 cm pieces after a 10-minute blanch in boiling water. Resist going smaller than about 6 cm - small pieces give up their juice long before the collagen melts and finish as dry floss. Toss everything with 30 g of the salt, spread it out on a tray, pat every surface completely dry with kitchen paper and leave uncovered at cool room temperature for 45-60 minutes: salt needs this long a head start to travel anywhere near the middle of pieces this size, and a bone-dry surface is what stops hot lard erupting the moment the meat goes in.
2. 2 Choose the widest, heaviest vessel you have. A copper cazo is the real thing, but a 28-30 cm enamelled cast-iron or thick aluminium pot at least 14 cm deep and 9-10 litres in capacity works: the meat and fat together come to roughly 6 litres, and you need everything above that as headroom for the milk stage. Melt the 2.5 kg of lard over medium heat until it is completely clear and reads 90 C / 194 F on a probe thermometer. Do not substitute a tall narrow stockpot - the pieces need to lie roughly in one layer, or they stew in their own steam and never crisp.
3. 3 Lower the pork in with a skimmer, densest first: skin, ribs and buche, then shoulder, then belly on top, tucking the halved head of garlic and the bay leaves down among the pieces. Once everything settles the lard should come within a centimetre of covering the meat; if it does not, add more lard rather than making up the difference with water, and take some confidence from the fact that the belly and skin will render another 500-800 ml over the next three hours. Pour the 250 ml of water slowly down the inside of the pot - it sinks and will bubble hard from the base for a minute, which is normal - where it pins the pot at 100 C / 212 F while the collagen begins to loosen and keeps the outsides from sealing too early.
4. 4 Bring the fat back to a bare tremble, 85-95 C / 185-203 F, with small lazy bubbles rising around each piece, and hold it there for 2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours, adjusting the flame every time the sound changes. If the lard is frying loudly or the surface is rippling hard it is too hot: a crust forms now, and once it has, the interior will still be tough three hours later. Lift and turn the pieces gently with a skimmer every 30 minutes rather than stirring, so nothing tears apart.
5. 5 From about 2 hours 30 minutes, start testing: the noisy bubbling of evaporating water drops to a soft mutter, the lard runs clear again, and a skewer or paring knife should slide into the middle of a shoulder chunk and back out with no resistance at all. Do not move on until it does - a chunk that still grips the skewer will never come good once the sugar and the high heat arrive. Fish out and discard the garlic and bay leaves now, before the final blast, or they will scorch at 170 C / 338 F and turn the whole pot acrid.
6. 6 Turn the heat to medium and add the whole milk, evaporated milk, grated piloncillo, the remaining 15 g of salt, the orange juice and both spent orange halves - in two additions, pouring slowly down the inside of the pot and standing well back, because dairy hitting 90 C lard foams up hard and a pot this full will climb. Cook for 25-35 minutes, until the foaming and spitting have stopped completely, the fat is clear and quiet again, and the meat has taken on a pale caramel sheen and smells faintly of toffee and orange peel. This late seasoning is the Michoacán signature and it cannot go in at the start: over three hours the milk sugars scorch onto the base and turn the whole cazo bitter.
7. 7 Only once the pot has gone properly quiet - any water still left from the milk will make it spit violently - raise the heat and take the lard up to 160-170 C / 320-338 F for a final 10-15 minutes, at which point the sound changes from a mutter to a fine, fast crackle. Turn the pieces two or three times and pull the pot off the heat the moment the edges catch, the skin blisters and the surfaces go deep amber. With sugar in the fat, the window between amber and burnt-bitter is about three minutes, so do not walk away from the pot.
8. 8 Lift everything out with a skimmer onto a wire rack set over a tray and rest for 10-15 minutes so the juices settle back into the meat. Rest on a rack, never on kitchen paper - trapped steam softens the crust you just spent 15 minutes building. Taste the crispiest shard and correct with a last pinch of salt while the pieces are still hot; it should taste properly seasoned on its own, before any salsa goes near it.
9. 9 Chop, do not shred: pile the rested pork onto a large board, pull the rib meat off its bones, and work through everything with a heavy knife or cleaver into rough 1.5-2 cm pieces, deliberately mixing lean shoulder, soft belly, rib meat and shards of crackling so every taco carries all four textures. Two forks pulled through carnitas produce dry uniform strands and throw away the entire reason for cooking mixed cuts together.
10. 10 Let the lard cool until warm but still liquid, then strain it through a fine sieve lined with muslin into a clean jar and refrigerate for up to 1 month, or freeze for up to 3 months. It now carries milk solids and sugar, so it browns and smokes far sooner than fresh lard: send it to refried beans, roast potatoes and tamal masa rather than to a second confit.
11. 11 Serve straight away in doubled corn tortillas warmed on a dry comal over medium heat for about 30 seconds a side until soft and pliable - three tacos a head, which is why there are 60 tortillas for 10 people - with chopped white onion, coriander, a sharp tomatillo-and-serrano salsa verde and lime wedges, and no cheese, lettuce or sour cream. Leftovers keep 3-4 days refrigerated and should be revived in a dry, hot skillet for 2-3 minutes a side to bring the edges back; a microwave turns them to rubber.

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