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Carla saw a recipe for a pernil al horno style pork roast in The Oregonian FoodDay. It was close to a favorite recipe of mine but substitutes orange for the rosemary and leaves out the vinegar. There were accompanying recipes for pickled red onions and ciltantro-rice so I thought I’d make up the complete dinner.

I started with a 4.2 pound boneless pork shoulder roast; the rub is made up of salt, brown sugar, cayenne, garlic, orange zest, ground black pepper, smoked paprika, and cumin seeds. I ground the seeds even though the recipe didn’t call for it. You can find the details in my copy of the recipe.

Boneless pork roast with rub ingredients.

Rub ingredients combined.

After rubbing the roast I covered it with foil and stashed in the refrigerator for 24 hours more-or-less. The next day it roasted in a 300˚F oven until it reached an internal temperature of 180˚F.

I had plenty of time Friday afternoon that I decided to make the pickled red onions.

The recipe called for white vinegar but agree with Alton Brown: white vinegar should only be used for cleaning things. So I substituted white wine vinegar. You can find a shorthand copy of the recipe here

Prep for pickled red onions.

Thinly slice the garlic and serrano pepper, mix with the vinegar, sugar, salt, cloves and bay leaves. When the mixture reaches a boil, add the thinly sliced onion and carrot and simmer for about a minute.

Pickling ingredients

Finally put all the ingredients in a glass jar and stash in the refrigerator. Next time I’ll use twice the pickling ingredients so the jar will be full of liquid.

Pickled red onion with carrot.

Saturday as the roast was close to finishing. I whipped up the rice dish. I made lots of changes to the rice recipe for use with my rice cooker; you can find my copy with edits here.  I chopped garlic, scallions, and jalapeño, then tossed in the food processor with some water. Once blended it would be part of the liquid for the rice.

Cilantro rice aromatics

In the meantime I sautéd the rice in a skillet with some olive onion; then transferred to the rice cooker, added the aromatics and filled to the proper line with water.

Cilantro rice ready for serving.

The roast came out of the oven looking beautiful.

Pernil-style pork roast.

After letting it cool for about 20 minutes I sliced and dinner was served.

Dinner is served: pernil-style pork roast, cilantro rice, peas, and pickled red onions.