How to finish sous vide carnitas without drying them out
I've followed this recipe from Serious Eats to make sous vide carnitas. The sous vide step is easy - just leave it in the bag for 12-24 hours. The last step of the recipe is to break up the meat with a fork and put it under the grill for 10 minutes. However when I do this the meat goes from delicious and moist to crispy but completely dried out!
How can I finish the meat and keep the moist meat I spent so long preparing?
Best Answer
Make sure not to break up the meat too much. In particular, try not to smear it between the fork and the dish... You want chunky pieces, not spread-out strands. The more broken and strand-y the pork gets, the greater its surface area and the faster it dries out. You also want to crowd the pieces in the pan as much as possible while browning. It's better to have a bunch in the middle of the baking pan, than individual pieces spread around the pan.
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Is it possible to overcook carnitas?
Even if you keep plenty of water to keep it from drying out, I think you'd still end up coking it so much the meat would separate into fine strands. It would just be meat-mush and probably have a bad texture.Can you sous vide carnitas?
It's a fantastic and easy method, but I'd venture to say carnitas are even easier when cooked using a sous vide immersion circulator. For one thing, you don't have to heat up the oven, or worry about leaving it on all afternoon. Using sous vide, there's also no real chance of overcooking.Sous Vide Carnitas
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Answer 2
It sounds like your meat is being grilled too long. 10 minutes is a guideline, not a hard and fast rule, you want to cook to the target color and crispiness, not a time. Your grill may be hotter than the person who wrote that recipe. So, if you can select a lower grill temperature do that first and see if that improves things, if you only have one temperature try lowering it away from the heat and reducing grilling time.
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