I’ve got a ten pound pork shoulder in my freezer. My first thought is to make it into a bunch of pulled pork to re-freeze for Winter dinners. I’ve got several good honest-to-Og Vidalia onions, a half-gallon of apple cider and about 30 oz of Sweet baby Rae’s Honey Barbecue sauce.
The last time I tried to cook a pork roast it filled the house with the barnyard stench of pig, and I ended up throwing it out.
So help a girl out, please? How do I do this so that it turns out yummy this time?
I think my mistake last time was leaving it in the fridge for 3-4 days to thaw. I think it was too long and it started to spoil, but I’m interested in a more knowledgeable analysis!
My plan so far is to roast it on high heat in the oven, then cube it and move it to the slow cooker adding the flavorings when it seems about half done.
Thanks for any ideas/suggestions/guidance you can provide!
I’d just roast it in the oven with whatever rub you like on about 225, until it hits around 190 internal temp. I really don’t like the almost mushy texture you get from pork in a slow cooker.
I love pork done in a slow cooker and one of my go-to slow cooker recipes involves pork, onions and apples. (Sorry no recipe link; I just wing it now since I’ve done it quite a few times.) Basically just pork, onions, apples and a generous pinch of cinnamon. I’ve never noticed a mushy texture, and it freezes/reheats very nicely.
But dang, ten pounds is huge! I’d just be roasting that thing in the oven on low heat. Roasting from a frozen state is fine, you just have to allow extra time.
Pork smells like pig. I never really noticed the distinctive odour of different meats growing up when my mother cooked meat for dinner most nights and did a Sunday roast, but now that I don’t eat a lot of meat, I’m much more aware of the smell of it cooking.
I had to prepare a meal for my dog training club and when pork shoulder went on sale, pulled pork seemed the perfect economical choice. Long slow cooking meant that the smell of roasting pig filled my house for hours. Not the greatest, but it was darn tasty when it came out of the oven hours later, and everyone seemed to like it, so ell worth it, but yeah…
Another fan of oven roasting; I made pulled pork yesterday. If the roast is tied up, cut the strings and remove them. Find a good rub recipe with spices and brown sugar. Rub all over the thawed roast and leave it on the counter for about an hour. Slide into a 300 degree oven for about 4 hours until internal temp is about 195. Any less, it can be tough; much more than 200 it can be stringy. Remove from oven, let cool a bit, then pull with a couple of forks. Sauce with barbecue sauce of your choice, or make your own.
I buy direct from my farmer and all the meat I buy is frozen. I’m a super lazy cook, so unless it’s something special or a whole bird, I cook everything from frozen. Now, I’ve never had a pork roast that huge, mine top out around 5 pounds, but I would think my method would apply.
I turn on the oven to 225F. I get out a dutch oven and put a little olive oil and white wine/rose/Marsala (whatever’s laying around) in the bottom, just covering by a 1/2 inch, not a ton. Put the frozen roast in there and spray with olive oil cooking spray. Sprinkle with kosher salt and cracked pepper. Put in oven uncovered, fattiest side up, for an hour per pound plus an hour at the 225 temp (so I would aim at 11 hours for a 10lb roast). Once it’s cooked through and fork tender, crank the oven to 400 for about 20 minutes to get more caramelization/browning, though it will brown up surprisingly well at that temp for that amount of time.
The biggest thing I’ve done this method with was a 7lb lamb leg and that turned out divine, too.
I thaw everything by putting it in a bath of cool water. Since water is much denser than air it’s a far more effiecient heat conductor.
Just chuck that little dude in a cooler and fill from the tap. Maybe drain and refill once an hour, and it’ll probably be completely thawed in 2-3 hours.
So most of your excellent suggestions came along after I had put it in the oven. Filed away for next time though. Thank you!
I put the frozen 10 pounder on a roasting rack in the oven at 220F and went to bed. About 5 hours later I got up and checked it. It was still a bit bloody next to the bone but basically done through and nice and crispy on the outside. Not nearly soft enough to pull though.
So I moved it to a large stock pot. I browned a bunch of onions and tossed in the meat as I sliced it into 1/2 inch steaks against the grain. The onions browned and most of the meat browned on the outside as well. Then I added the apple cider and a ton of spices.
About an hour later it was fall-apart tender so I poured off the extra liquid and stirred in the BBQ sauce. Then I divided it into portions and froze it.
It came out great, and although it took hours to do, it really didn’t require much actual work. And no barnyard smell this time, thank goodness!
After I sliced off the steaks I trimmed the remains and combined them with some leftover rice to make dog food. I also put the skin back in the oven and crisped it for dog treats.
So, overall, for 13 dollars I got about 8 dinners, a week’s worth of dog food, and a month’s worth of treats. Not bad!