Orange and Milk Braised Pork Carnitas

Pork shoulder braised in milk and orange juice for two hours, then roasted and grilled until the edges crisp. Carnitas are Mexican, and the page sits in Worldwide Recipes with its URL unchanged. The name means little meats, and the technique is what defines it. Traditionally the pork is confited, cooked slowly submerged in lard until it is soft enough to shred, then briefly crisped at high heat. That two-stage structure is the whole point: soft and unctuous inside, browned and crunchy at the edges. Braising in milk instead of lard is a variation, and a sensible one for a domestic kitchen, since it produces the same tenderness with far less fat. Milk braising is worth understanding. The acid in the citrus curdles the milk, which looks alarming and is correct, the curds break down over a long cook and the whey tenderises the meat, giving a texture and a faint sweetness that water or stock cannot. It is an old Italian technique as well as a Mexican one. The source describes barbacoa as originating in the Caribbean. The word is Taíno and reached Spanish that way, but barbacoa as eaten in Mexico is Mexican. Recorded as the muddle it is.