Smoked Pork Roast (Carnitas)

We had eaten "carnitas" recently at a Mexican restaurant and decided to try it at home.  Carnitas is a roasted or braised pork common in Mexican cuisine.  We made up our own recipe and combined smoking the pork roast for several hours, then finishing it in a crockpot for additional flavour and moisture.  Delicious!!  

It's a full day affair to prepare and smoke the pork, then finish it in the crockpot, but the results were well worth it.

The finished product!!

Ingredients:
1 large pork butt  (we purchased one and then cut it in half so it would smoke faster and could fit in the crockpot)

Rub:
- garlic salt
- paprika
- cumin
- a little smoked chili powder

Combine all the rub ingredients and massage well into the pork roast.

Smoking:
Smoke the pork roast over very low heat (200 F) for 5 hours.  We used apple wood chips* which gives it a lighter smoke flavour, than some of the others.

*We recently cut branches off of our apple tree in the back yard and my husband has spent many weekends making wood chips!  We have a few garbage bags full now....  should last us a couple of years.

Check out the smoke!!

You could smell it throughout the neighbourhood.

Gets your tastebuds going.....

Crock-pot:

• 1-2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp dried chipolte powder
• 1 cup fat free chicken broth
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• zest of 1 lime
• 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce and 1 tsp. adobo sauce
• 1 bay leaf
• one white onion, cut up

Combine all of the ingredients and place in crock-pot.  Set the pork roast on top and spoon over some of the sauce.  Simmer on low for at least 2 hours.

Remove the pork and the bay leaf (if using).  Using a hand-held blender, puree the sauce all together.

To serve, you can either pull the pork and serve in a tortilla shell or bun with the ingredients listed below.  Or you can cut the pork into chunks and serve on a plate, again with any combination of ingredients below.  We did a high-bred of both, served chunks of pork in a tortilla with big chunks of tomatoe, avocado, shredded lettuce, with our crema-like sauce.  

Serve with any or all:

• tortillas (or on their own)
• vinaigrette coleslaw
• avocado
• tomatoes
• lettuce
• sour cream, thinned with milk (sort of like a Mexican crema)

Deliciosa!