2For66

I cooked this a bit before Thanksgiving but held off on publishing on the blog because “Turkey recipe” is what everyone was searching for. Time has passed and it is still the Holiday season. This is a great dish to serve for a big family dinner.

I originally saw this recipe on the Food Network show “Food 911” with Tyler Florence. I’ve cooked it a few times; although I’ve never blogged about it. I did make a different version of this three years ago – which you can read about here – that was good but not as good as the original.

This is a pork shoulder marinaded in rosemary, garlic, salt, oil and vinegar before roasting. Even though there aren’t many ingredients there is plenty of flavor. It is best marinaded overnight.

The original recipe calls for mashing together the garlic, salt, rosemary leaves, and pepper in a mortar and pestle. Yeah, you can do that; but I got lazy and just put in a food processor.

And pulsed a few times.

Then the food processor lid goes back on and we drizzle some olive oil and white wine vinegar until it smells wonderful and is ready to slather on the pork shoulder.

We then wrap the roast in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight to brine and marinade.

Once that is in the fridge we move on to the accompaniment of pickled onions and carrots – super, super easy.

Adding a sliced serrano or jalapeño will provide heat if you’d like. I used some crushed red chile peppers instead. The recipe calls for regular vinegar. Ugh; as Alton Brown says, that should only be used for cleaning. I substituted white wine vinegar.

Boil everything but the onion and carrots for one minute; let cool a bit. Place the onion and carrots in a jar or bown and pour the liquid over the top. After it cools put it in the refrigerator – overnight is best.

The next day you will be rewarded with yumminess

There may not be quite enough liquid in the 2014 Oregonian Newspaper recipe I used so you might want to multiply it by 1.5 – it all depends on how big your onion is.

Ah, everything is prepped for tomorrow so let’s walk around the house and look at Fall rolling into Portland.

The beauty of this recipe is that a lot of the work is done the day before; and the cooking is all done by the oven; this provide a stress-free day when the guests arrive.

I cooked at 350° for 3 hours until the skin was so nice and crispy. Make sure you check the internal temperature to make sure it’s safe to eat.

That shadow at the bottom of the photo makes the roast looks like it’s hovering over the cutting board; it’s good but not THAT good. Pull out your sharp carving knife and have at it. This is a boneless roast so carving was so easy.

Our lovely hostess cooked some orzo with olive oil and parmesan cheese – which was lovely. Pressure cooker risotto would be another great side dish. We also had some nice crusty french bread.

I held everyone back from the table while I took a picture.

Our dinner guests were people I’ve worked with for so many years. Karen and I started at Portland Community College back in the early 90’s to implement the Banner (TM) student and financial aid systems. Her husband, Frost, was or vendor consultant (after a year of intermittent training they weren’t sick of each other – quite the opposite). We continued to work together as the years roll on. I bowl with Frost on Monday Nights (we are the Trophy Husbands) and our workspaces are right next to each other at OHSU.

I worked with Kara when we managed technical teams in the same division at OHSU. Just as I was diving into my first attempt at retirement she met Patrick who is the bees knees. Karen earned a Master’s Degree and taught in the Information Systems program at U of O; where Kara is now the director. They had never met but they  had a grand time getting to know one another.

Kara especially *LOVED* the pickled onions.

We prepared the day before and had a simple cook; nevertheless, we were faced with this after the party. But it was worth it.

Rating: ★★★★  If I knew how to display half a star I’d give it 4 1/2. This is a pretty simple dish to prepare with a big payoff; I’ve served it for guests many times and it’s always been a hit. That said, if you are vegetarian, don’t eat pork, or watch your salt intake you may want to skip this dish. That crusty exterior is so flavorful but you’ll get your day’s requirement of salt. Yummy; so, so yummy.

Want to cook it? Here are the links:

• Food Network’s Food 911 web page for the roasted pork
• My copy of the pork recipe
• My copy of the pickled onion recipe. I couldn’t find the Oregonian’s page – probably too long ago.

By the way; I store my recipes in DropBox. A while ago they changed their links for sharing information and some many of my older recipe links don’t work anymore. If you see that, please add a comment to the problem post and I’ll fix it up. I’m slowly – ever so slowly – working my way through them but want to get a jump on the things you look at.

Thanks