Pernil, ¿por qué no?

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.

A Carnivore's Delight: Grill-Braised Short Ribs

For your reading (and eating) pleasure, a guest post from my partner-in-cookery....

Looking good enough to eat!

As The Picky Eater's Daddy, it is my place to encourage the carnivore in us, even if vegetables do occasionally pass my lips.  As such, I am particularly keen on short ribs, which have risen from relative obscurity as restaurants have discovered that they can take what used to be trash meat and present it as a $28 entrée in many of the restaurants around here.  This same thing happened to Osso Bucco in the 1990’s and flank steak in the 1960’s.

I do enjoy beef short ribs, however, and the restaurant versions are usually very good.  This is due, I think, to their initially roasting the ribs (and perhaps the veggies) in a hot convection oven to really get them very well browned, then using very rich red wine with many added spices, with significant reduction of the braising liquid for service.  At home I have never been too happy with the usual oven versions.

The usual short rib recipe is to brown the ribs in a casserole (I use cast iron) on the stove top, brown some onions, carrots and the like on the stove top, then pour in the red wine and stock and braise in the oven.  This process does take ~3 hrs total, and, in the summer tends to heat up the house (no air conditioning in the homestead) and makes the place smell like braised beef for a couple of days (not such a bad thing, perhaps).

I have converted a roast pork recipe (a variation on Mark Bittman’s Pernil) and a roast turkey breast for the grill to be able to reasonably cook these during the summer.  I took it on myself to try the same thing with short ribs.  The impetus for this was a recent America’s Test Kitchen (Cook’s Country) recipe for grill-braised pork, where pork shoulder “steaks” were grilled first, then braised on the grill in a BBQ sauce concoction, then grilled briefly at the end of the cooking to put on a bit of glaze.  It occurred to me that the same treatment could be used for short ribs.  There is little about this on the web, a couple of recipes using stout or beer, but no traditional red-wine based braise that I could find quickly, but there are some precedents, see for example sausage maker Bruce Aidel's Fine Cooking Magazine article on Barbeque-Braising.

The key to these recipes is that the grill does a much better (and less messy) job of browning the meat than frying in oil on the stove top.  This is probably due to the moisture in the meat being quickly evaporated on the grill, allowing higher surface temperatures on the meat, resulting in better browning.  Additionally, some added flavor is likely imparted to the meat during this grilling.

As browned vegetables are usually used in the braising, I also grilled these after the meat, again generating better flavor in the vegetables (onions, carrots, chili, and celery) than is easily accomplished on the stove.

To get more flavor in the meat, it is marinated in a mixture of red wine and spices, in fact in the same braising liquid that is to be used later.  This helps flavor the meat and also combines with the meat juices during the browning on the grill.  I don’t think the exact measures of the following ingredients are very important, in fact, none of this was measured at the time, so use your best judgment.  Be a bit careful with the salt, however, as eventually the reduced braising liquid will be used for the sauce, and much of the salt will remain in this concentrated liquid.

I balked at the initial price of $6/lb for the short ribs at one mid-range market, but found them in a local Chinese grocery for $4/lb.  God knows what Whole Foods charges.
Thus we have:

Grill-Braised Short Ribs

5-8 lbs beef short ribs as desired
1 disposable aluminum roasting pan, to fit ribs and veggies snugly in a single layer
1 bottle red wine, something robust, I used a cheap (but drinkable) zin-cab-syrah blend out of a box (Target Vintner’s Blend, 2011 as if it really matters)
1 large onion, sliced or quartered
2 large carrots, cut in half the long way
2 large celery stalks, cut in 6” lengths
1 mild chili pepper, such as poblano, seeded and cut in two lengthwise
2+ cloves garlic
2+ tsp black pepper
1 Tb salt
1+ tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp chili powder or cayenne or both, as desired

Put the ribs and all of the spices in either a large heavy plastic bag or container, and add enough red wine to just cover the meat and massage briefly to mix.  Let sit in the refrigerator as convenient, say 3-6 hrs.

I use a large covered charcoal grill, so light up a chimney of charcoal, or run a propane grill relatively high until ready for action.   Place the coals on one side of the grill to leave room for the braising off direct heat. Remove the meat from the marinade and start to grill, letting each side (or, well, most of the sides) brown very well, a few minutes per side depending on the heat level.  No reason to hurry here.  Occasional fat flare-ups seem to enhance the flavor. While doing this, transfer all of the marinade to the disposable pan and start to heat it on the grill towards boiling.

When finished grilling the meat, transfer the meat to the pan in a single layer, and grill the vegetables over the coals until also quite browned, a few minutes per side.  Add the vegetables to the pan and make sure the liquid comes up at least 2/3 of the way over the meat, as the liquid will cook down some during the braising.  If more liquid is needed, add more red wine or chicken stock (never water).

Place the pan over the hottest part of the grill and heat until boiling, then either turn down the grill or move the pan off direct heat.  Cover the pan with heavy aluminum foil to reasonably seal the pan.  The heat should be regulated to have the liquid bubbling slowly, for about 2-2.5 hrs.  You can peek after an hour or so to make sure the liquid has not evaporated.  If so, turn down the heat some or add some additional wine or stock.  Once you think it is going well, leave it alone with the cover closed.  With a charcoal grill, the heat will naturally reduce over time, which is not really a problem with this sort of recipe.  The picture shows the ribs at the end of the 2.5 hr braising.  This is what you are looking for.

When done, transfer the ribs to another covered pan and strain and de-fat the braising liquid into a sauce pan.  Reduce the liquid by around half, tasting for salt, which can be added at this point if necessary.  This liquid should be strong and very flavorful.   Serve the ribs with some reduced sauce, perhaps over garlic mashed potatoes or polenta.  A young syrah is a good match for this sort of thing, but pretty much any good, rich red wine will do.  You went to all this trouble to cook the meat; have something worth drinking.  I had a 2009 Provenance Cabernet Franc, which was very nice, thank you.

I simultaneously cooked a ~2” thick boneless chuck the same way, which turned out pretty well, but without the maximum flavor of the short ribs.