• Preheat your oven to 275°F (135°C).
• Place all the meat pieces in one layer in a 9″ x 13″ baking dish. Season with salt (be fairly generous but not crazy).
• Scatter the cinnamon pieces, bay leaves, and peppercorns among the meat. Do the same with the garlic cloves (they needn’t be peeled).
• Peel and quarter the onion and tuck the quarters in with the meat.
• Quarter the orange and squeeze the orange juice all over the meat. Tuck the squeezed-out quarters into the meat as well.
• Pour the lard or oil over the meat.
• Cover the dish tightly with foil, noting the location of one of the largest pieces of meat near the center of the pan.
• Insert a 2.5″ Pro-Series Needle Probe through the foil into the center of that large piece of meat and connect the probe to your BlueDOT. Set the high-temp alarm for 202°F (95°C). You can connect your BlueDOT to a smart device with the free ThermoWorks app and watch the cook proceed on the cloud!

• Place the dish in the oven and cook until the alarm sounds, then set a timer for 40 minutes.
• After the timer sounds, carefully open a corner of the foil (watch out for steam burns!) and verify the temperature and tenderness with your Thermapen ONE.

• If all the meat is at temp and feels probe-tender, remove the pan from the oven.
• Pour the contents of the pan through a colander into a bowl. Allow the juices and fat to separate in the bowl, or pour them into a gravy separator.
• Sort through the meat, removing onion bits, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, and peppercorns.
• Coarsely shred the meat chunks and put them back in the pan, spread out.
• Take the fat from the surface of the liquid and add it back to the meat. Stir to combine.

Make the salsa and crisp the meat

• Place the green onions, tomatillos, jalapeños, and cilantro stems into a saucepan. Add enough of the pork juice to come to about 1″ below the surface of the veggies and bring to a boil.
• Boil for about 8–10 minutes, until everything is just going soft.
• Pour the pot of cooked salsa ingredients into a blender, add any stemmed habaneros you are using as well as the juice of the lime, and blend until smooth. This will be a thin salsa. Taste for salt and adjust. Add more peppers if more heat is needed. (Remember that the fattiness of the pork will cut the heat severely, so don’t be afraid of a salsa that kicks a little hard on its own.)

• While the salsa is cooking, crisp the pork. Turn on your oven’s broiler and adjust the rack to be about 4″ from the heat. Place the pork back in the oven and cook until the surface crisps, about 3-5 minutes.
• Stir the pork to expose more of it to the surface and continue to cook, another 3–5 minutes.

• Remove the crisped pork from the oven and serve your carnitas with the salsa, some warmed corn tortillas, onions and cilantro, and limes.
• Enjoy!