I was at the Troy Farmer's Market today and picked up 20+ lbs of various pork parts. One of the pieces I picked up was a 4.5 lb of pork shoulder. I am teaching an American BBQ class on Wed., but was really in the mood to have a slow cooked pork dish today that was a little different. So I decided to make a version of an English dish that I like. This dish is often done with Chinese 5-spice (Fennel seed, anise seed, cinnamon, black pepper, and clove) which I am not fond of for some reason, I've always disliked it. I decided to grasp onto the English love of Indian curry.
Ingredients
Pork Shoulder 10 lb
Spice ingredients
Ginger, peeled 2-inch piece
Garlic 5 cloves
Soy sauce 1 tablespoon
Red Pepper Flakes 2 teaspoons
Sea Salt 1/2 tablespoon
Ginger, ground 2 teaspoon
Canola Oil 1 tablespoon
Curry Powder 1 tablespoon
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Grate, or mince garlic and ginger, combine with remaining spice ingredients to make a paste.
3. Score the fatty side of the pork shoulder with 1/2 inch slices in a grid work pattern. Place into a roasting pan, fat side up, and spread half of the curry paste over the pork. Place in the oven and roast for 30 minutes.
4. Remove the pork from the oven, reduce the heat to 225 degrees. Flip the pork shoulder to have the fat side down, spread the remaining curry paste over the pork, add 1 cup of water to the pan and place back into the oven on a rack. Slow cook the pork shoulder until very tender, which can be from 12-18 hours, it is all about the texture, not the time.
5. Serve with some steamed Basmati rice.
Curious about putting the pork shoulder fat-side-down for the long slow cooking phase of the dish.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't you want the fat side up, so all the melting fat would drip down into the meat?
I once smoked some bone-in shoulders for a Carolina style pork pull and mistakenly put them fat side down. They weren't half as good as the ones that were fat side up.
The fat side up ones were delicious. 18 hours of slow and low hardwood smoke.
The difference there was that you were smoking the meat, while this is slow cooking in the oven. I actually neglected to put in the recipe to place it on a rack as well. There is so much fat in the pork that if you put it fat side up in this recipe it would be a greasy mess. I've tried making it both ways and prefer it this way.
ReplyDelete