This is ridiculously fast and simple, provided you have your carnitas on hand already, or get some from a local mexican market or restaurant. In my case I had a package on hand from Trader Joe’s.
Here’s the whole process.
- Nuke or bake your sweet potato. If you nuke it, I find that about 5 minutes does the trick, perhaps 7 minutes for a big one. I use white sweet potatoes almost exclusively, as I don’t care much for the orange ones people often refer to as yams.
- Cut them in half and spread them open a bit on a cookie sheet.
- Put three pats or more of butter on each half and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon.
- Pile on your carnitas, top with more butter, and sprinkle with more cinnamon.
- Place under the broiler for a few minutes until the meat is a bit crispy.
Click to open the large versions.
Number One
Number Two
Having done a few dishes with carnitas and fruit, this seemed like a natural when I thought about it, and then, inside of about ten minutes confirmed it worthy.
One variation might be to scoop out some of the flesh in order to decrease the amount of potato and starch while increasing the ratio or even quantity of protein and fat if you like. I’ll probably use even more Kerygold butter next time, too.
Damn that looks good.
Nothing like a delicious sweet potato with kerrygold butter and cinnamon. As Rich pointed out this may be too much starch for some. That is why I always save it for after my workout. Sometimes I have to admit that I want to workout just so I can justify having some of this stuff.
Had something similar for dinner last night except with liver.
Two and a half pounds of food cost me $4, less than the price of a Big Mac Value Meal.
/liver and sweet potato go surprisingly well together
My wife makes the best carnitas. Now I have another idea for leftovers.
Thanks Richard
Mmmm…
I think I might try it with diced steak, since I don’t have any pork in the house at the moment. Ooh, or the above suggestion of liver sounds good too… options, options!
Actually, Hawaiian-style sweet potato with sliced ham and pineapple sounds fantastic too, now that I’ve thought of it. Lots of ham and just enough good Lanai pineapple to make it tart and sweet… now I wish I was in HI instead of stuck in AZ where you can’t get good, fresh local-grown pineapple…
Of course, I usually wish I was in Hawaii, so it’s not like that’s much of a change.
Good stuff.
I discovered somethting new lately- fish tacos . LOL ! Never heard of that before.
Fish tacos are the bomb!! I love goint to Ensenada Mx in the summer time. Lots of fish tacos and cold Pacifico cerveza! mMM!!
Damn Richard you managed to piss off catholics and muslims in one post. Pork, Ash wed. Catholics/ pork ,muslims. Outstanding!!!
In solidarity to the eating more starchy tubers, I am doing this for dinner this next week. I got the carnitas from La Michoacana’s taqueria, because they are the best. 2 1/2 lbs for 12 bucks. 1/2 lb. (or more) per potato. I am going to REALLY be looking forward to and enjoying dinner this week. When I got to the part of the recipe where it gets crispy was all the convincing I needed.
My friend Jose introduced me to the chicharróns from La Michoacana several years ago. We would eat them during football games with guacamole and Mexican picante sauce. I think we probably ate the equivalent of 4 whole pigs in a weekend of World Cup matches.
So happy to see you devouring Trader Joes pork carnitas. I always feel guilty that they aren’t paleo enough and must be full of omega 6, but they are so simple and so good!!!