Pork Carnitas Tacos + Good Food & Wine Show!

When it comes to tacos, Pork Carnitas Tacos are the best of the best. When I was in Mexico last year, much research was done to hunt down the BEST carnitas joints that the locals haunt!

Mexicans take their Carnitas tacos seriously because it is so mouth wateringly delicious. Succulent, slow cooked seasoned pork, shredded and stuffed into tacos. I am so obsessed, these are what I made for the cooking demo I did at the 2016 Sydney Good Food & Wine Show on the weekend!!!

It’s been 2 years since I posted my Pork Carnitas recipe which, to this day, remains as one of my all time most popular recipes. I’ve made it countless times since, and I am honestly not exaggerating when I say that I almost always have bags of frozen Carnitas in my freezer.

They are that easy, that good, and that versatile. Verified by the hundreds of readers who have left their feedback on the recipe!

So when Murray Valley Pork asked me to do a cooking demo at this years’ Sydney Good Food & Wine Show (just, you know, the biggest foodie event of the year!!), there was no contention – I had to do Mexican Pulled Pork Tacos!!

GOOD FOOD & WINE SHOW update!

The Sydney Good Food & Wine Show took place on the weekend just gone and I was so excited to be there doing cooking demos for Murray Valley Pork!! I planned for it meticulously, practiced the recipes over and over, slapped on the makeup and packed an entire suitcase full of kitchen gear to take (no joke). And I had all my Baby Fingers tightly crossed that it would go exactly to plan.

It did not.

I forgot to use most of the garnishes and sides for everything I made, wanting to make everything look pretty.

I completely buggered up a sauce.

I tried to salvage it, then buggered up the salvage attempt. So I had to remake it from scratch.

A pork tenderloin “jumped out” of the oven onto the floor.

And when I went to the bathroom after the demo, I realised I had a chunks of pork in my hair. 😉

It was SO MUCH FUN!!!

As strange as it sounds, all those bloopers just made it even MORE fun! With every bugger up I made, I just laughed my way through it, along with the audience!

Wow, what an experience. I loved chatting to people, loved talking about why it makes a difference to get to your butcher for Murray Valley Pork, loved being behind the scenes and getting my hands dirty (literally!). And most of all, I loved being able to actually share my food with people in real life, not just through the computer screen. We were only handing out samples, but still! It was a hint of reality of why I enjoy doing what I do – because good food isn’t just about cooking and photographing the food, it’s about sharing it!

And by popular demand….yes….a little VIDEO of the Sydney Good Food & Wine Show! 🙂

So today, I wanted to share with you the Pork Carnitas tacos that I made at the Good Food and Wine Show. Albeit I forgot most of the sides and garnishes during the show!!!

This spread is my copycat of the Carnitas tacos at Old Town Mexican Cafe in San Diego that my friend Kevin from Kevin Is Cooking took me to when I visited a couple of months ago. With San Diego being only 30 minutes from the border of Mexico, there is seriously good (and real) Mexican food there, and the Carnitas at Old Town Mexican Cafe are reputed to be the best in town!

I don’t want to come off as obnoxious, but I did declare to Kevin that I truly think my Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas are pretty darn close to the Old Town Mexican Cafe ones. 🙂

So I made my Pork Carnitas taco spread complete with refried beans (made by dressing up canned refried beans), a chipotle tomato salsa sauce just like Old Town Mexican Cafe. Here are some iPhoto snaps from when I went. What do you think? Does mine look similar? 😉

Juicy, tender pulled pork with the all important golden crunchy bits. Here’s a nice little close up of the Pork Carnitas. Nice sight, hmm??? 🙂

Creamy avocado and refried beans. Juiciness from tomato, zing from onion, and a fresh kick from the spicy tomato salsa sauce, finished with a squeeze of lime.

No sour cream and no cheese here! That’s not the way tacos are served in Mexico! But I would never judge if you had to have them…. – Nagi x

PS Couple more classic moments from the Show:

1. When my brother yelled out “more pork, less talk!” in the middle of the demo!! Everybody laughed and Murray Valley Pork declared it to be a fabulous new tag line!

2. Right in front of the client, my mother peered at my face and screeched “are you wearing fake eyelashes??” (Where is the eye roll emoticon when I need it??!!)

And more tacos

• Quick Chicken Tacos – 2 in 1 recipe, shredded taco seasoned chicken AND taco sauce

• Beef Tacos – the old school way

• Marinated Grilled Chicken Tacos

• Slow Cooked Shredded Mexican Chicken for Tacos

• Fish Tacos – marinated and grilled, healthy and delicious!

• Shredded Beef Tacos – tender slow cooked shredded beef in a deep flavoured Mexican sauce

 

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 LIFE OF DOZER

Where was Dozer? He was sent to a friends’ place for the day – another retriever called Ollie! I wasn’t allowed to take him to the show. Something about hygiene rules? Bah! 😉 People wanted to meet him!

Maybe next year…..

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