A guest post by my (erstwhile) better half.
Hal’s Variation on Mark Bittman’s Variation on Pernil
A few years ago, Mark Bittman of the New York Times published his favorite 25 recipes. Of these, one for roast pork in the Porto Rican style, a so-called Pernil, caught my attention. A wet rub of onion, garlic, spices and vinegar was spread on the outside of a giant fresh pork shoulder and then slow cooked in the oven until very tender. See the original write-up in the NYT- The Minimalist: Let the Oven Do the Work.
I tried this a couple of time with good success, but there is always room for improvement. For one thing, his recipe called for spreading the mix over the exterior of the roast, and only just before cooking. The roast was also in the oven for around 4 hours or so, resulting in a (well, wonderful for me) smell of roast pork that took a couple of days to dissipate. It seemed that these were two avenues for improvement.
I now bone out the small “7” shaped bone from the roast, and also take advantage of the opportunity to clean out some of the fat and membranes, etc., from the interior of the roast. Don’t worry, there is still plenty of fat for both flavor and moistness of the finished roast. The wet rub is then allowed to marinate the interior of the meat for at least a few hours (or overnight) before cooking.
The second main “improvement” was to move the cooking outdoors. In my case this is in a large, covered charcoal grill, under mostly indirect heat. This keeps the smell and heat outdoors, and increases the smoky character of the outside of the roast. It also makes it suitable for summer cooking, when it would needlessly heat up our un-air-conditioned homestead. My grill is big enough to cook both the Pernil and a boned and rolled, full turkey breast at the same time, just in case you have a crowd coming for dinner.
But, I digress. I have made some alterations to the spice mix, adding a fresh chili and smoked paprika for additional flavor and bite, while keeping the original concept still intact.
The cooking time will be somewhat variable, depending on equipment and style, but it will take about 3-5 hours under most circumstances. You are looking for low and slow, not fast and hot. The starting product is sold in my local grocery as a pork shoulder roast, is usually about 6-8 lbs as sold, and looks something like this:
At my upper-end market, this pork roast is around $3.50 a pound, so even a very large roast is affordable. They probably don’t sell this sort of thing at Whole Foods. If you happen to have a Mexican market in your area, I assure you they will have this at a good price.
There is a little bone hidden inside this roast, which must be removed. This is not too difficult; just take your time. Neatness does not matter too much, as the whole thing gets re-wrapped in the end. After my boning, and after removing some of the extra fat, we have:
At this point the wet rub is made, in a food processor. Combine:
1 whole onion
4 cloves garlic (or more if you prefer)
2 Tbs fresh oregano or 1TB dried
1 Tb ground cumin (don’t leave this out)
1 large fresh chili, I usually use Pasilla, which is readily available, but Anaheim would be OK
1 Tb salt
1 Tb paprika, smoked is preferred
2 tsp ground black pepper
Olive oil as needed (a couple of Tb, I suppose)
1 Tb red wine vinegar
Pulse until relatively smooth, but not completely pulverized:
Spread this mixture over the inside and outside of the boned pork, and let sit, refrigerated, for a few hours or overnight. The roast then needs to be re-tied back to something like its original shape, using heavy cotton string, as shown:
At this point, fire up the grill, either with charcoal or propane. The idea here is to slow cook the roast, but it is helpful to put a bit of heat onto the roast at the beginning to both give some color and flavor and to speed things along. I put the charcoal off to one side, have the roast near the coals for ~10 minutes per side at the start, then move it off to the side for extended cooking. For a large roast, additional coals will need to be added after ~1.5 hrs. After a couple of hours the internal temperature should be up to 120 degrees F or so. At this point you want the temperature to slowly get to around 150F to 165F. At the lower temperature the meat will be moist with some fat still evident. This is where I like it. At the
higher temperature (and significantly longer cooking time) it will get more like a fall-off-the-bone (if there was one) roast pork. I am rarely that patient.
The roast can rest, covered, for 15 minutes up to probably an hour or so. Since there is no bone, it can be very easily sliced, to produce:
Pour a hearty red wine or beer, have some veggies and a pilaf or roasted potatoes, and all will seem right with the world, if just for a few minutes.
