We enjoyed last week's New York Times Dining section a lot. The recipes were tantalizing, the photos were appetizing, and they had Harold McGee guest writing again. The Minimalist's recipe for Pernil, a Puerto Rican pork shoulder roast, stood out - its promise of ease and bright flavors looked so appealing we made it two days later. We had a few problems initially...
Pork shoulder, the inexpensive cut of meat that Bittman uses, was nowhere to be found! We looked in two different shops - no shoulder. We ended up with three small pork loin roasts, a more common cut of meat.
We made the paste in the recipe - garlic, onion, fresh oregano, cumin, salt, pepper. We added a little chipotle powder instead of the ancho, which we didn't have on hand. The paste comes together very quickly in a food processor, and we did it the night before to save time. The meat marinated in this all night, with the paste well-rubbed into small cuts in the meat.
Then we roasted for about three hours at 325°F or until it hit 160°F internally. We let it rest for almost two hours before serving, covered with foil. We were very worried that it was going to be tough and overcooked, but when we sliced it it fell into delicious slices, spicy and garlicky on the outside and tender within.
It didn't fall apart the way Bittman's recipe said it would, but frankly we didn't use the same cut of meat and the cooking time was different accordingly. The spice paste was absolutely delicious, and we loved the flavor it gave to the meat. We served it with our Poetic Chimichurri sauce which was also a big hit.
Recommended recipe - we're going to play with it again soon.
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
I also tried this recipe on the weekend and encountered some of the same problems. I may have not bought a shoulder roast (the meat is labeled in French, and my food vocab is not well-developed), and the meat definitely didn't fall apart. Should I have cooked my 4 lb roast for longer than 3 hours at 300F?
Still, it was great and provoked many oohs and aahs when I served it on Saturday night. In fact, I'm still eating the leftovers.
view Michelle of Montreal's profile
GOOD! I was eyeing that recipe, I'm glad you tried it out. will try it this weekend.
view steamykitchen's profile
Not sure if Bittmann's article mentioned it, and I'm sure lots of kitchn'ers already know this, but in case someone is searching with no success, pork shoulder is same cut as pork butt.
view LauraII's profile
I made a pork shoulder this weekend, but with different seasonings. My 6.4 lb shoulder cooked for just over 4 hours at 325. It wasn't exactly falling apart, but it was very close, and I was absolutely satisfied with the results.
I'm not a butcher or otherwise authoritative, but I would imagine very different results or methods between such different cuts (loin vs. shoulder).
I don't know where Faith is located, but when I lived in New York, I found pork shoulder at Latino or otherwise "ethnic" neighborhoods with no problem. Where I live now (Texas) it's not a problem to locate pork shoulder/butt unless I'm at the smaller natural foods store.
On the other hand, I have great respect for Bittman and his approach, but I've rarely been impressed with his recipes (I credit no-knead bread to Lahey). Minimalist sounds cool in theory to me, but I am often bored with the results.
view renata's profile
Cool, I wanted to try that recipe, too! And Pork shoulder is n sale this week!!! Hurry up weekend...
view ironstef's profile