Friday, May 10, 2019

Chicken Carnitas

After spending some time eating vegetarian, I am trying to cut back on the meat I eat, and to eat more sustainably. This means relying more on chicken and fish as my staple proteins, rather than beef or pork.

This means I need to get a bit more creative to keep myself satisfied, so when a friend of mine asked for a chicken carnitas recipe to help him out, I jumped at the challenge.

Ingredients:

4 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
4 cloves of garlic
1 medium yellow onion
2 jalapenos
¼ c olive oil
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
¼ tsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp oil

Directions:

Put the chicken thighs in a slow cooker. Peel and crush your garlic, peel and quarter your onion, roughly chop your jalapenos. Place everything, except the last 2 tbsp of oil, in your slow cooker and toss to make sure it is all well combined.

Cook on low for 6 hours.

Once cooked through and tender, remove the chicken and drain the liquid through a mesh strainer and reserve.

Chill both for a few hours or over night.

You can skim the fat off the liquid once it is cool, or stick in the freezer for an hour to make it easy to scoop off.

Once the chicken is fully cooled shred-it using either your hands or a fork or chop it into small pieces.

To reheat, pour 2 tbsp of oil over medium heat in a large pan, once the oil is shimmering, add your shredded chicken in one layer and sear without moving for 2 minutes to build up the characteristic crust. Poor in reserved one cup of cooking liquid and stir until heated through.

Serve on warm tortillas with chopped red onion, chopped cilantro, and crema or sour cream. It also works great on nachos and it keeps well in the freezer.