KO Carnitas
KO Carnitas is one of those recipes we come back to again and again, especially when we want to put something genuinely impressive on the table. The mushrooms are infused in a smoky ancho chilli broth, then roasted until they're sticky, caramelised, and packed with deep flavour. You get this incredible mix of textures, tender in the middle, crispy at the edges, and the seasoning hits just like the real thing. Honestly, if you've got people over who reckon plant-based food isn't proper food, this is the one to make them.
Before You Start
- Preheat oven to 200°C
- Large roasting tray
- Colander
- Small bowl for spice mix
Ingredients
- 500g king oyster mushrooms
- 1 litre boiling water
- 3 tbsp Ancho chilli paste
- 2 tsp salt
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- ¼ tsp chilli powder
- pinch of black pepper
- 1 orange
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- mini tortilla wraps
- 2 spring onions
- 2 limes
- pickled red onion
- sliced red chillies
- guacamole
Method
Prepare and infuse the mushrooms
- Cut the caps off the mushrooms, halve the caps.
- Rip the mushroom stems into 1cm thick strands.
- Get 1 litre of water bubbling on the stove over high heat, add 2 tbsp ancho chilli paste and 1 tsp salt and stir to combine.
- Add the mushrooms to the pan and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Drain the mushrooms with a colander into a bowl, reserving the cooking stock for later.
- Transfer the mushrooms to the roasting tray.
Season and roast the mushrooms
- Add the remaining salt, oregano, cumin, chilli powder and pepper to a small bowl and stir to combine.
- Sprinkle the mixture over the infused mushrooms along with a ladleful of the reserved stock and massage into the mushrooms.
- Halve the orange and squeeze the juice over the mushrooms, catching any pips in your free hand.
- Put the tray in the oven and roast for 20 minutes, stirring halfway through.
Meanwhile, reduce the cooking stock
- Return the reserved mushroom cooking stock to the pan over a medium heat with the brown sugar and remaining tablespoon of ancho chilli paste.
- Reduce down until you have about a ladleful of stock left, scraping off any stuck bits of thancho chilli paste off the base of the pan with a wooden spoon to capture the flavour.
Time to serve
- Trim and finely slice the spring onions.
- Cook the tortilla wraps according to packet instructions.
- Add another squeeze of orange juice, lime juice and the reduced cooking stock over the roasted mushrooms, and mix well to combine.
- Top each wrap with a big pile of the guacamole and mushrooms.
- Garnish with spring onions, sliced red chillies, pickled red onions, a final squeeze of lime and serve.
Tips & Variations
- Get your mushrooms right: We love using king oyster mushrooms here because ripping the stems into strands gives you that pulled, meaty texture. The more you shred them, the more surface area you get for caramelisation.
- Turn the heat up: Don't be shy with the oven at the roasting stage. You want real colour on those mushrooms. If they're steaming instead of roasting, they're too wet or too crowded on the tray.
- Build your toppings: This is absolutely worth loading up properly. Pickled red onions, fresh coriander, a squeeze of lime, and some sliced jalapeños take this from great to ridiculous. We always make the toppings while the mushrooms are in the oven.
Why This Works
The trick here is the two-stage cooking process. Simmering the mushrooms in that ancho chilli stock first means the flavour goes all the way through, not just sitting on the surface. Then roasting them hard drives off the moisture and gets you those gorgeous caramelised edges that make carnitas so good in the first place. Don't skip reserving that cooking stock either, it's liquid gold and you'll want to use it.