Beer Braised Pork Carnitas | #BeerMonth

I'm usually pretty traditional in my cooking of carnitas (or literally, "little meat")—pork, salt, and a little bit of water is really all it takes to make the best carnitas you'll ever eat in your life. Be it the traditional stove-top method of combining water and pork lard and simmering chunks of pork in it until the water evaporates and leaves the now-tender meat to crisp up in the lard, or my preferred oven-roasted method that uses the fat rendered from the pork bits themselves to baste and crisp them up. Either way, tender meat enclosed in salty crisp and sticky bits are little morsels of heaven on earth.

But today, in honor of beer month, I decided to step out of my puritanical-carnitas box and do the braising of the pork in a good, amber lager. I also added some spice beyond salt. It's gettin' crazy up in here. Crazy delicious.

Simple, rustic food is what I tend to gravitate towards, and this version of carnitas really fits the bill. A stove top braise in a fragrant beer bath and about 90 minutes is all it takes to achieve a plate piled high with tender pork. Once it is tender, you remove the lid and let the liquid evaporate and concentrate, inviting the whole garlic cloves and strips of lime zest to melt into it.