La Concina de Eagle Spirit // Carnitas de Salsa Roja in English

Even though I'm doing a cleanse right now, the time passed for where I could not eat solid food and well I went a lil cray by making one of my favorite dishes.

This is not for vegans since it's made with country style pork ribs. I'm not even sure how you would make it with anything else since this is one of those dishes that just doesn't taste right, unless it's bad.

For many years I stuck to life without a lot of meat and mostly chicken if I needed to eat meat. Believe you, me I'm trying hard to not eat so much meat, but since I get homesick around this time of year too, well here it is ... Carnitas de Salsa Roja.

The best pot to use is a cast iron dutch oven for making carnitas, so get that out and warmed up.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

A rack of natural pork country ribs is the best, and if you can get organic then that is really the best that can be done in this situation.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

Clean them well by wiping them with a paper towel, do not wash or rinse.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

Cut off all the meat into cube sized pieces and leave some meat on the bones. This will be used at a future date to make green chile. Store in refrigerator or freezer.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

Place cubed pieces into the dutch oven with the fat sides down on the bottom of the pot.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

Add 1 cup of lard to the cubed carnitas, spread out evenly over the top, allowing it to spread throughout the pot evenly.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

I can smell it cooking now! Place the lid on top to allow this to cook on medium heat. Do not allow the carnitas to burn or overcook on once side. Keep an eye on it and stir occasionally.

As the carnitas is cooking, start the salsa roja ...

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

If you have the fresh arbol and guajillo peppers on hand then grill those up with some garlic but add that last on the grill as it will cause your peppers to sour. This time, I did the quicker method and bought these in a bag. Fresh but not as fresh.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

Use approximately 4 guajillo peppers and 18 arbol with 2 cloves of garlic. Warm up some water but do not allow the water to boil. Add the peppers to get them softened up with the garlic added after about 30 minutes. These peppers were kinda tough so this took me about 2 hours for them to soften.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

Continue to stir the carnitas and add salt throughout the time the peppers are softening. The longer the better for carnitas to cook and peppers to soften. This is a slightly long process but worth it in the end. The total amount of salt will be approx. 2 tsp.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

AFter the peppers have softened, cut off all the stems. Some people take out some seeds too, I prefer seeds so I leave those in my salsa.

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^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

Now mix the peppers in a blender with peppers and garlic. Add 1 cup of the water from the soaking.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

After the peppers have been blended then add 2 cubes of chicken cube broth base. I prefer fresh but this was all I had at the time. Either will be sufficient for a good taste.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

Carnitas should have the above texture and not burnt. If the carnitas are overcooked they will be too hard to eat and not very good. This takes practice, but if I can do it so can you.

^{Photo taken by @eaglespirit}

The salsa roja in this recipe is spicy so adjust to taste and is a delicious dip or spread for carnitas. I grew up dipping tortillas in sauces. Enjoy!

Yours,

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog. I’m a Certified Indian Blood member of the Hopi & Apache Native American tribes, Reiki Master-Teacher, Medicine woman in-training, paralegal, researcher, and writer based in the mountains of Colorado, USA. I work closely with fellow planktons and minnows in a few groups by helping them adjust to Steemit and curate quality content. I’m especially interested in finding others who love natural medicine originating from ancient practices, gold and silver, and energy work. Additionally, I'm the creator of #MedicineCardMonday and #FreedomFriday, so if you are interested in receiving Native American Medicine stop by my blog every Monday to say hello!

A'OO, Eagle Spirit