Chicken Carnitas!?!


This makes no sense to me.
Are carnitas destined to go down Fajita Avenue where the original term’s meaning gets obliterated and mutated into something else?
Sounds like homemade nuggets to me.

4 Likes

I don’t have a problem with the concept, but the recipe is completely idiotic. Why would you simmer already-cooked chicken for 20 minutes? Also, shredded breast meat will never really get crispy and would be totally unpalatable after all of that cooking. Shredded thigh meat would work, but you’d still want to skip the 20 minute simmer!

Anyway, I don’t love the name either but it is fairly descriptive - if I saw “chicken carnitas” on a menu somewhere, I would expect to receive chicken prepared in the style of carnitas (i.e. braised, shredded and then fried crisp), which is more or less what this recipe is.

3 Likes

I’m wearing my grumpy old man hat a lot these days.
:smiley:

7 Likes

Let’s hope not. This is from someone living in SE Texas, with the Wifeacita from the Rio Grande Valley, fajita central on the border with Mexico.

Fajitas are beef made from the skirt steak or faja in Spanish, at the time a cheap cut given to vaqueros by ranchers on both sides of the border served in handmade tortillas popularized by Ninfa’s Restaurant in Houston.

They are not chicken, shrimp, veggie, tofu or you name it grilled and wrapped in bad packaged tortillas.

Carnitas are the same, already teetering on the edge now poised to be pushed over by the abomination of chicken carnitas going the way of boneless “Buffalo” wings and watermelon margaritas.

This will be assuaged by the real carnitas I’ll be feasting on this weekend at El Jardin Restaurant deep in the Houston east end barrio .

https://www.eljardinhouston.com/menu

1 Like

Yeah, I think thighs cooked in a lot more fat would work better, especially if you get some crispy skin.

But I also agree with bbqboy, that recipe needs a modifier - “carnitas” or carnitas style, or just call it braised chicken.

2 Likes

The whole breast meat idea is killing me. The tacos look awful in the photos on top of everything else. Oh well, it’s a bitch pumping out four hours of content every weekday. You gotta just spew out what you have without worrying too much about it. Or so I’m told.:slightly_smiling_face:

6 Likes

The only poultry I can see working as carnitas is duck confit.

2 Likes

I would definitely eat a duck confit taco.

2 Likes

I’m pretty sure it’s a thing.

2 Likes

On a related note, have you (or anyone) ever tried making chicken thigh confit? It seems like it should work, although obviously not as well as duck. We had a Chinese takeout place in my hometown when I was a kid that topped their fried rice with super tender, shredded dark meat chicken that I imagine must have been confited or something similar - best fried rice ever.

2 Likes

I haven’t, maybe others have advice

1 Like