So my go-to with pork shoulder is to give it a dry rub, slow-smoke it for 12+ hours and serve with BBQ sauce, classic American BBQ style (sort of North Carolina style, to get specific- I like a thinner, vinegary sauce with a hint of tomato).
This approach has served me well over the years. A few months ago, before the pandemic set in, I smoked two big shoulders and froze it in portions in quart-sized freezer bags. We’re almost done with the leftover smoked pulled pork, and my wife and kids are getting kind of over it. I think smoked meats are kind of like a rich, chocolate dessert-- delicious occasionally, but eaten too often gets to be a little much. Plus smoking is probably not the healthiest way to always cook meat.
Recently when I saw the meat shelves starting to get bare, there were still a lot of cheap pork shoulders, and I bought and froze a couple ~8 pounders. So now I’m contemplating what to do with them. Hawaiian style? Asian style? Carnitas? Something else? Slow cook in our crock pot? Fast cook in our Instant Pot?
I’ve been looking at different recipes online, I’m more interested in hearing experiences like “I tried X recipe and I knocked it out of the park!” Also, do not need answer fast-- I forgot to take one out in advance for this weekend and it’ll probably take almost a week to thaw out those bad boys.
Oh, i have a couple ideas. The first would be cochinita pibil. Recipe here.. But it requires some specialized ingredients like achiote paste and plantain/banana leaves. You can skimp on the latter, but not on the former.
The other – an Italian milk-braised pork dish. Here’s one recipe. They’re all generally the same idea: braise pork in milk until the milk until it cooks through. That recipe also contains heavy cream – I don’t use heavy cream, just whole milk. Some recipes don’t even add the aromatics like sage. I think the purist recipe is just pork and milk. Lemme check my cookbooks. Yes, Marcella Hazan (the Julia Child of Italian cookery) only has butter, oil, pork, salt, pepper, and whole milk in her recipe. That’s it. No sage, no lemon, none of that stuff. When you’re done with it, the sauce looks like a curdled mess, but it is so deliciously porky and caramelized. Whirl it with an immersion blender if you want it to look nice. Traditionally, this is made with pork loin, but American pork loin is way too lean for the cooking time required here – like 2 1/2 - 3 hours according to Hazan. It’s an unexpectedly delicious dish.
I also agree with turner’s suggestion of cider-braised pork shoulder. It’s like the pork version of Flemish beef carbonnade, which is beef braised in beer (usually like a belgian farmhouse ale or red ale or something of that sort.)
My go-to method for pork shoulder is a lot like this recipe. I’m fond a rub of salt, pepper, and garlic powder along with rosemary and/or tarragon or sometimes allspice and dry mustard. One important step left out of the linked recipe is deeply scoring the fat layer so you end up with delicious puffs of cracklin on the top. I would also go with something deeper than a baking sheet or you’ll constantly worry about it overflowing. I do final crisping at 400-425 for about 45 minutes to an hour rather than 500 for 20 minutes. It works just as well and reduces the possibility of filling your kitchen with smoke.
A shoulder is often the main attraction of an old-fashioned Sunday dinner in our house, with mashed potatoes, stewed tomatoes, sauerkraut(nobody but me eats that), and fresh rolls or cornbread.
I’m ignoring the backstory that calls pulled pork “BBQ”
Heh, I was actually going to specify “Western” but thought I’d be getting unnecessarily specific. Should have known I’'d be called out for that here!
I like the cochinita pibil recipe! I am leaning towards something Mexican/south of the border.
That Italian milk-braised recipe sounds weird but intriguing. I’m not even sure what you’d serve with that- the recipe didn’t have any suggestions. I’m sure the resulting sauce would be good maybe sopped up with some crusty bread.
I like this cooking style idea. Simple but good, and creating a crispy cracklin’s outside is appealing. And pork 'n sauerkraut does get in the rotation- my 17 yo son, who’s ordinarily finicky, LOVES pork and sauerkraut, oddly. He often bugs me to make it (it’s my Grandma’s simple recipe, basically just simmering pork and sauerkraut with potatoes and sauteed onions).
BTW though, what did you mean by “I’m ignoring the backstory that calls pulled pork “BBQ” :)”. Not getting the joke there. Slow-smoked pulled pork is considered BBQ, is it not?
This one sounds like a winner! It’ll take finding some ingredients that I don;t think the grocery store will have, but as mentioned I’m kinda planning long-term here-- probably the weekend after this coming one.
We really like having it Korean taco style (not always with the tortillas, just with rice). Cook it and shred it (in the winter sometimes even use the Instant Pot and then 10 minutes under the broiler) and then a good sauce and serve it with lots of kim chi. Delicious!
Kenji knows his shit and the science behind it. The addition of fish sauce and raisins gives a nice bump to the umami. FWIW, I order my dried peppers from Amazon, especially the pasilla chilis, as they are just not available around here. For some reason, they’re always ‘fresher’ than the ones in the local stores, which always seem to be brittle. The nice thing about adovada, carnitas and the like is the different uses for it, such as tacos, burritos, with eggs, etc.
I like to use my sous vide at 165F (140 if you want to slice it instead of shredding it) for awhile, anywhere from 1-3 days. Then carefully remove it from the bag, pat it dry, gently apply a dry rub (without rubbing, or it falls apart), then use a blowtorch on it to create a crust. Serve with Korean barbecue sauce.
Yeah, Texans somehow got this weird idea that barbecue involves beef in some bizarre way.
Have you thought about pernil?. I’ve never made it myself, but I’ve devoured it in various Brooklyn restaurants. I know Biggirl makes it — she must have a drop of Caribbean blood in her somewhere — maybe she’ll drop by to advise.
Yep. Just a simple starch like polenta. Or you can do risotto if you’re feeling fancy and want some more work to do. Not much to go with it. Let me quote Macella Hazan’s intro to the recipe. I think it’s short enough that it shouldn’t fall afar from copyright issues:
Like I said, she is talking about loin there. Her specific recipe is rib roast, but she also does say “another cut of pork that is well suited to this dish the the boneless roll of muscle at the back of the neck, sometimes known as Boston butt”. That’s your pork shoulder, basically. That’s what I make this dish with. Just serve it with a fairly neutral starch, and you’re good to go.
A drop of Caribbean blood? I will cutchu! I’m so Puerto Rican I can vote in their elections.
Everybody makes pernil there own way. Basics are: A shoulder with skin. A slow oven and a knife to make many holes in the beast for. . . The marinade.
My marinade consists of olive oil, vinegar, pepper, Adobo, recaito, sazon, oregano, fresh garlic, fennel seeds (not at all ‘authentic’ but you can’t go wrong with fennel seed in pork), cumin and paprika. No salt, adobo is saltier than salt. I do not have measurements. I look at the pig and then eye everything until the paste looks good and there is enough.
And then you stab the fuck out of that shoulder. Stab it and stab it. When it looks like you couldn’t possibly stab it any more-- stab it some more. When you’re done stabbing it, stab it a little more and take a spoon and put your marinade/paste and spoon it into all the holes. Put the spoon deep into the stab wounds to make sure you fill the whole cavity with marinade. Slather all the leftover marinade all over the pig.
Turn it skin side down, cover with plastic wrap and stick in the fridge for however long you got. I have skipped this step in a pinch and your meat still states fine but, you know, marinade needs to marinate.
When ready for cooking, flip meat skin side up, tent with foil (don’t touch the skin!) and put in a 250 degree oven. 2 or 3 or 4, maybe 5 hours later (matters how big your pig is), when the smell is driving you insane and making you leave a trail of drool (check temp, should be at least 135), remove tent and raise temp to 400. When the cuedo (skin) is hard and crunchy, pull it out and let it sit for at least a half an hour (I try at my house to do this, but everyone always comes by and sneaks pieces because OMG! the aroma! It can drive you batty!)
Biggirl @15:. Thanks for this; generous of you to share the family secrets. I’m gonna print that out and paste it into the big book of home recipes that I only bring out when there’s guests. The Ukulele Lady won’t eat pork shoulder because she is afraid of Fat.
My wife does a salt rub and cooks the shoulder at a low temp (250 I think) for four or five hours. Turning up the heat makes the fat softer and makes the salt fall off, so that doesn’t work. The pork is very tender after this.
The last one we did we had for dinner, and we had pulled pork, and she made enchiladas with it, and I had it for sandwiches a few days and we’re going to finish it off in a stir fry. And we’ve got another in the fridge.
