Fresh Carnitas Burrito Bowl
Fresh. Delicious. Easy. Tons of Left Overs. What else do you need to hear?!?!?!
There are multiple things that I make that my husband requests. As I make my grocery list for the week I always ask him "Is there anything you want for dinner this week?". He often responds with burrito bowls or the pesto, gouda, cranberry Panini. The Panini is a pain in the ass (but delicious so maybe we will revisit that at another post). So when he tosses out burrito bowl, I definitely do not gripe. It is easy and not costly to make. Plus hey, I enjoy eating it as well. There are always lots of left overs and if you don’t want Mexican the next day, you can toss the extra pulled pork in bbq sauce and make sandwiches.
You will need a Dutch Oven though. I wish I could be fancy and put a plug in for a Le Creuset, but my $75 Lodge Dutch Oven hasn't failed me yet.
Ingredients:
Picnic Pork/Pork Butt/Pork Shoulder (5 lbs cut for this recipe)
Short-Medium Grain White Rice
2 Cans Pinto Beans
2 Cups Green Enchilada Sauce
2 Cups Apple Juice
1 Can Dr. Pepper
1 Yellow Onion
1-2 Bushels of Cilantro
5 Cloves of Garlic
1-3 Limes
Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, Granulated Garlic
Cojita (optional)
Avocado (optional)
Tomatoes (optional)
Cholula (optional)
For the Pork:
1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.
2. Place the Dutch Oven on your stove top and put a few tbsp of olive oil in the bottom. Put the stove top on a medium/high heat.
3. As the olive oil is heating up, generously cover the pork with salt, pepper and granulated garlic. (Unless you're quite literally dumping the container on the meat, you’re probably not over doing it. Once it sits in the liquid, it dissipates and really, those seasonings are for the whole 5 lb chunk of meat.)
4. Place the pork into the hot oil. Let it sear on all sides until brown. It will most likely be about 5 min per side. You're just looking for a little bit of browning on the outside of the meat. The real cooking happens in the oven.
5. After you have browned the meat on all sides. Pour in the Dr. Pepper and the apple juice.
6. Loosely cut the garlic and the onion. You're just looking to infuse the flavors; you don’t have to worry about cutting them up small or anything. Dump them into the pot.
7. Cut the stems off of the cilantro and go ahead and throw them in there as well. You will want to reserve the leaves for later. But the stems will add great flavor to the pork as it cooks.
8. Once you have all of the ingredients in the Dutch oven, place it in the preheated oven. Use oven mitts since the whole pot will have heated up at this point. And just in case it doesn’t go without saying, um, keep on using them!
9. If you have a 5 lbs cut of meat, you will leave it in the oven for 3 hours at 200 degrees. Then the last 2 hours, you will want to change the oven temperature to 250 degrees.
Fast Forward
10. Go ahead and prep the rest of the ingredients when you're about 30 minutes out from taking the pork out of the oven.
11. After taking the Dutch Oven out of the oven, take a few forks and begin to shred your meat. I'll be honest, it’s kind of funky if you haven’t done it before. But just hold a chunk of meat down with one fork and pull at it with another.
11. I like to reheat it in a sauté pan with half a cup of juice from the cooking mixture. It rehydrates the meat, adds flavor and heats it back up.
For the Rice:
1. Follow the directions for your rice maker. You're generally looking at 2 cups of water/1 cup of rice. I like to use short or medium grain white rice. If you don’t have a rice cooker, use your stove top. Our $30 Aroma Rice Maker hasn’t failed me yet. For each 1 cup of dry rice, you will want to cup up a head of cilantro leaves and juice one lime. So if you’re making extra rice for left overs, add more cilantro and more limes.
2. Add 1 tbsp of butter per 1 cup of dry rice. Salt and pepper to taste. Give it a quick stir and wait till it beeps.
Beans and Sauce:
1. You ready for this... rinse and empty two cans of pinto beans into a pot.
2. Empty 2 cans (or 2 cups from a large can) of Green Enchilada Sauce.
3. Heat to desired temperature.
4. Marvel at your culinary prowess.
Additional Options:
Cut up an avocado
Cup up a tomato
Crumble Cojitas
Limes Wedges for squeezing
Extra Cilantro Leaves
Cholula... its yummy and adds some heat. (This dish is fairly mild.)
You’re now ready to assemble your bowl. We start with the rice, followed by the beans/sauce, the meat and then the optional toppings. It’s really quite easy and one of the more "prefab" items that I enjoy cooking and eating.
I have recently been reprimanded by my little sister for not featuring her role in this dish. hehe. :) It was at my sister's house that I first tasted pulled pork from her dutch oven.. yeah, she has the fancier one; a Le Creuset. It was a Christmas present from my mother. Now that I have a food blog, maybe that's what I need for Christmas. Hint, hint mom! :) But I digress, Britney Kristin Martin, thank you every so much for taking time to impart your culinary genius into my life. I am forever and always indebted to you (sarcasm present). But seriously, I love you and thanks!
