Pernil, A Puerto Rican Style Roast Pork Shoulder
By: Carla
Published: Saturday, May 1, 2010 - 7:22am

Ingredients




1 pound pork shoulder, 4 to 7  (or use fresh ham)
4 or more cloves garlic, peeled
1 large onion, quartered
2 tablespoons tablespoons fresh oregano leaves (or 1  dried oregano)
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ancho or other mild chili powder
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil as needed
1 tablespoon wine or cider vinegar
1/4 cup of orange juice
Lime wedges for serving

Preparation

1 Heat oven to 300 degrees. 2 Score meat's skin with a sharp knife, making a cross-hatch pattern. 3 Pulse garlic, onion, oregano, cumin, chili, salt and pepper together in a food processor, adding oil in a drizzle and scraping down sides as necessary, until mixture is pasty. (Alternatively, mash ingredients in a mortar and pestle.) 4 Blend in the vinegar. 5 Rub this mixture well into pork, getting it into every nook and cranny. 6 Put pork in a roasting pan and film bottom with water. 7 Roast pork for several hours (a 4-pound shoulder may be done in 3 hours), turning every hour or so and adding more water as necessary, until meat is very tender. 8 Finish roasting with the skin side up until crisp, raising heat at end of cooking if necessary. 9 Let meat rest for 10 to 15 minutes before cutting it up; meat should be so tender that cutting it into uniform slices is almost impossible; rather, whack it up into chunks. 10 Serve with lime.

About


An incredibly simple pork roast with a hint of Spanish culture.
Adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything