Crockpot Carnitas And Red Wine

Robin loves Mexico. Before we met in 2005, she traveled to a small island off Cancun called Isla Mujeres for 10+ years in a row. She loves everything about traveling to Mexico, the sun, the beaches, the margaritas and definitely the food. Robin loves Mexican food so much, that she’ll want to book a trip just to have delicious tacos or guacamole. So, when I found a crockpot carnitas recipe on Eat, Live Run, I figured I could bring Mexico to Robin.

Jenna really put together a super easy recipe. Since the full ingredient list is on her site, I’ll just run through the preparation, so we can get to the wine. In a small bowl, combine the chili powder, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper.

Mix the rub well, and coat both sides of the 2 pound flank steak with it. While the steak sits in the bottom of the crockpot, chop up the red pepper, green pepper, jalapeno pepper, and onion.

The rest of the preparation is pretty simple. The meat is already on the bottom of the crockpot. Take the chopped peppers and onion, and then cover the meat with them. There’s no liquid going into the crockpot, so I tried to keep the peppers on top of the steak, that way they wouldn’t burn on the sides.

Set the slow-cooker for 8 hours on a low setting, and go relax. That’s all it takes to make this pretty easy dish. For the last 45 minutes or so, I took the wine for dinner out of the cellar, and pulled the cork. I decided on a Grenache blend, something that had red berries and spice. While my twitter friend Elizabeth DeHoff suggested gewurztraminer to pair with this dish, I wanted something that would keep the spices going, rather than balance them out. Elizabeth’s idea was a good one, and if you want a nice refreshing white, then gewurztraminer will do nicely.

Hecht & Bannier 2009 Cotes du Roussillon Villages is a blend of grenache, syrah, mourvedre and carignan grapes. At $25, this is a French wine to have on hand, as it works well with or without food. Think dark cherries and dark raspberries, doused with a nice firm shaking of pepper. The wine has a nice, silky palate, and the fruit is fresh and prominent. This wine works well with beef, roasted or grilled. And it did fairly well with crockpot carnitas. Though provided as a sample, it’s a wine I wholeheartedly recommend.

Once the meat is done, take it out of the slow-cooker using two spatulas under each side of the meat. It’ll fall apart easily, but we used two forks to shred the meat. We put it back in the slow-cooker to soak up the juices, and prepared the fixings. We heated the flour tortillas on a warm skillet, then topped each with a little of the meat, some sour cream, some cheddar and some avocado. Jenna has the exact recipe on her site, and recommends a slightly different finish for the taco.

While the scenery was nothing like Mexico, the food was pretty darned close. These slow-cooker carnitas tacos will definitely be made again! The preparation was simple, and the flavor was fantastic. The wine, of course, was perfect. The beef carnitas were not that spicy, and I’d probably add a little chipotle powder in with the rub, to give the peppers some depth and smoke. That said, it was a great taco dinner.

What’s your favorite Mexican meal? Let me know, leave a comment below!