Friday recipe: Pork Done Right, vol. 1

Vegetarians, avert your eyes.

I have a sneaking suspicion that “Pork Done Right, vol. 2″ will be posted somewhere around the first weekend in May, when we will open our doors to any and all who want to celebrate the Derby with us. Now that the weather has started to warm even just a little, we’ve been dreaming of last year’s scrumptious pulled pork barbecue sandwiches. Be still, my beating heart. And stay low, my cholesterol.

But to the task at hand: a hearty pork shoulder roast, easy as pie and just as tasty, in a completely different way. The general method comes from Lidia, whose recipes are brilliant because once you’ve made them, you never have to refer to a printed page again. And they’re all absolutely delicious.

Pork shoulder roast, not boneless.
3 or 4 carrots
3 or 4 ribs of celery
1-2 onions
4-5 cloves of garlic
2-3 T tomato paste
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 or 375, it really doesn’t matter much, because you’re going to be cooking this thing a good long while.

Take out a food processor if you have it, chop the vegetables into manageable chunks, then dump them in the food processor and puree the hell out of them. If you don’t have a food processor, a grater and some elbow grease will do.

Get yourself a covered pot big enough to hold the roast, about 8qt, and put it on medium-high heat. Season the roast on all sides with salt and pepper. Splash in a couple tablespoons of olive oil and brown the roast on all sides. Don’t keep moving it around–you want it to get brown, not pasty looking, on all sides.

Once it’s browned, which should take about 10 minutes or so, move it to the side a bit, and plunk down the tomato paste. Let that sit around a minute until it starts leaving brown goodness on the bottom of the pan. Then add in the pureed/grated vegetables, and stir around until it’s all sort of mixed in together, scraping up the brown stuff on the bottom of the pot, and nestle the roast back in amongst its vegetable brethren.  Spread some of the puree on top of the roast if you feel like it.  Let the spirit move you.

Now, the beauty part: let it cook, covered and mostly undisturbed, in the oven for 3 hours or until you poke at it and the meat falls off the bone. You may want to check that the vegetable puree isn’t drying out, but I’ve never had it dry out before. If, for some reason, it does, pour enough water or some kind of stock (chicken, vegetable, whatever you have) to get it a little liquified again.  Be warned that the puree may look pasty instead of liquified for  a couple hours, but it should get nice and sloshy by the end.

The finished product would be lovely served over egg noodles, with a salad on the side.  It’s also unconventionally lovely served up beside a baked sweet potato full of Amish butter and garam masala.  Remind me to wax rhapsodic about the Amish butter.

Now, the even beautier part: the next day, boil some whole wheat penne, toss it with the shredded meat/vegetable puree and load it up with parmesan. It’s just too good.