Slow-Roasted Pork Carnitas

After our 8-hour debacle last week with pulled pork sandwiches, we were craving some porcine redemption. Then we stumbled upon a recipe by celebrity chef Rick Bayless.

Bayless is the proprietor of a number of Mexican- and Southwestern-inspired restaurants, including Frontera in Chicago. You may also have seen him on Iron Chef and Top Chef Masters. We went poking around on his website, which boasts an impressive collection of recipes, and found ourselves an incredibly simple recipe for Slow-Roasted Pork Carnitas. Could it really be so easy? Trusting in the pro, we turned on our oven.

We were shocked to realize that this recipe requires only 2 ingredients: pork shoulder and salt. So shocked, in fact, that we went ahead and threw on a Southwestern chili blend from Urban Accents for good measure. (It turns out this was wholly unnecessary!)

You begin by cutting the pork shoulder into 1.5- to 2-inch thick slabs. The slabs are arranged in a 9x13 baking dish - Rick says these should fit comfortably with no overlap, but we had a different experience. Fortunately, after some time in the oven, they shrunk up, giving us no cause for concern.

Then 1/3 cup of water is poured over the pork and the meat is covered tightly with aluminum foil. Rick describes this as the moist cooking phase, and it takes 1 hour of completely unsupervised cooking. (We used the time to fit in a quick P90X session.)

After an hour, the foil is removed and the dry cooking phase begins. The first 30 minutes are also unsupervised; after that time, 20 more minutes are spent turning the meat occasionally. Once the meat is removed from the oven, it's so tender that it can easily be shredded and served with tortillas as soft tacos.

Compared with our pulled pork sandwich tribulations, this recipe was a breeze to pull together - totally low-maintenance and delightfully low-cost. Plus, we can think of so many ways to serve it. (Next time, we're adding barbecue sauce to the final mixture and making sandwiches!) For its versatility and ease of preparation, Slow-Roasted Pork Carnitas have been inducted into the YTK Hall of Fame!