Carnitas

[SkunkedAgain]

For the NFC Championship game, we made a mexican fiesta for all of our guests. I bought one of those 10lb pork shoulder picnic deals in a bag. I stuck that in the crock pot around 2am, made a quick rub and put it on the exterior, sliced some garlic and pushed them into slits I made in the meat, dumped a little orange juice into the pot, and let it go on low until noon. At noon there was tons of liquid in the pot. I removed the pork shoulder and reserved the liquid. The meat fell apart when I looked at it. I threw in a whole lot of minced garlic and then put the meat back in the crock pot on high for about two more hours. Once it was browned nicely I dumped the reserved liquid back into the meat and served.

It was really good and we've got lots of leftovers. The only problem is that it is all pretty bland. You can't taste one bit of the rub and I like some flavor and spice in my meat. My solution would be to make a spice mixture that goes into the meat right at the end.

What would you do?

[reinhard1]

i would make a spice mixture you like and put it in the meat after you have drained it and reserved the liquid. this way it is there for the last two hours as you have stated. i would also use less of the reserved liquid. just enough for the moisture you like. too much liquid takes away from the flavor in my opinion for something like this. a whole picnic has a lot more fat than a whole pork butt for example and so much of that liquid was fat. good luck.

[Ic3wind]

I've found that when cooking over a long period like this alot of more potent spices have a tendancy to mellow out substantially. Next time I would just make more of the same rub you used to start with and mix it back in the crock once you shred the pork

[OnAFly]

I agree with this, but when I use more seasoning, I try not to use any more salt. I've made batches of pulled pork that came out too salty because I just increased the amount of everything that went in, including salt.

[SkunkedAgain]

Old thread but I had to look it up this past weekend...I bought another pork shoulder, crockpoted it plain, and then added my spices to the reserved liquid. I probably should have followed reinhard1's advice (messed up) but it still turned out MUCH better than my NFC Championship game attempt.

Thanks for all of the suggestions - another satisfied customer