During this current time of high food prices I was happy to see pork shoulder butts once again offered at 99 cents per pound. Our freezer was still well stocked with 3 types of Goetta, pulled pork, precooked breakfast sausage patties and precooked Polish sausage; so I had to find something else good to make from this bargain buy. I have always enjoyed carnitas at Mexican restaurants, so deep fried pork cubes it was. Since this was a test-batch, only one big butt was purchased.
The 11.72 pound butt yielded 8.97 pounds of clean lean pork. Used raw pork cost came in at just over $1.29 per pound.
The thin outside shoulder muscle was kept whole. Its striated nature is excellent for making fajitas. And, since it is thin it also deep fries quickly.
2 teaspoons of sodium phosphate, 2 tablespoons of salt and a little water were mixed into the pork. Add the sodium phosphate and water ahead of the salt.
This is what the meat looked like after soaking refrigerated overnight. A little salt-soluble protein extraction did occur, but it did not hurt the finished product.
A 48 ounce bottle of store brand vegetable oil was purchased for $3.99. The entire bottle was poured into a 10 quart pot and then brought up to 350F. The oil level was kept low because it was important that the pot not boil over on our gas fired stove when meat was added.
An 11 inch diameter plate was used to measure approximately how many pork cubes were deep fried at a time. It took 6 plate loads to fry up the 9 pounds, more or less, of pork. It took right at 7 minutes of deep frying for the internal temperature of cubes to reach 200F. Pork was removed from the oil using a slotted stainless steel spoon. Oil temp was brought back to 350F before subsequent loads were cooked.
Some pork had already been eaten by the time this picture was taken, but here is what was packed for freezer storage. The thin muscle for making fajitas can be seen at the far end of the tray. Out of pocket pork and oil costs totaled $15.59.
12 small double wrapped convenience packages went into freezer storage.