Pork Carnitas with Baked Sunchokes

Pork Carnitas with Baked Sunchokes (Serves 4-5)

Melissa Joulwan came up with an excellent recipe for Stovetop Pork Carnitas that I adapted to the pressure cooker. You can enjoy this wonderful food my way in about 50 minutes or Melissa’s classic way in 2 to 3 hours. I’ve never had the patience to cook it her way, but I am sure it is fabulous.

Sunchokes, otherwise known as Jerusalem Artichokes, are a root vegetable that look like fresh ginger on the outside, white potatoes on the inside, and have a very pleasant nutty flavor. I heard they were bad about producing gas, but decided to bake a batch anyway. The good news is they taste wonderful and are easy to prepare. The bad news is they produce so much gas you should eat them in small portions. Me? I ate the whole batch and that’s how I know that small portions of sunchokes are the way to go!

Prep and Cook Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds of boneless pork shoulder country style ribs
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
Ground cumin
Garlic powder
Coriander powder
Black pepper
Cayenne pepper
Salt

1/2 pound of sunchokes
Extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Cut the pork into 3-4 inches chunks if it did not come from the butcher that way. Dust each side generously with salt, cumin, garlic and coriander powder, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Add 1/4 cup each of water, lemon juice, and lime juice to pressure cooker. Arrange pork in the pot. Lock top on pressure cooker. Increase heat to high. After achieving high pressure (about 10 minutes), reduce heat to the lowest level consistent with maintaining high pressure. Cook under high pressure for 20 minutes. Turn off heat under pressure cooker, use the slow-release method to bring pressure down (about 10 minutes), and remove top. Heat a non-stick grill pan over high heat. Remove pork from pressure cooker with tongs and sear the cooked pork for about 2 minutes per side in the hot grill pan.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash sunchokes and brush off any small sprouts. Slice into 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices. Cover a baking pan with aluminum foil and lay the sliced sunchokes in the pan. Drizzle liberally with olive oil and dust with salt. Turn pieces and salt the other side. Bake in 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Transfer pork carnitas and sunchokes to plates and enjoy!

Notes: I don’t recommend eating your fill of sunchokes like I did. Eat a small portion and supplement the meal with another dish. Pickled beets or pickled asparagus would be good.

I love my Kuhn Rikon Duromatic Top Pressure Cooker 7.4-Quart that I ordered from Amazon.com. After reading a bunch of pressure cooker reviews, I decided to spend a little extra to get the one the New York Times described as the Mercedes-Benz of pressure cookers. Kuhn Rikon is a Swiss company. Pressure cookers are so popular in Switzerland that the average household has three!

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