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By José Ralat Maldonado
Spit-cooked for 24 hours on the beach then served at the Christmas Eve feast with yellow rice and green pigeon peas, pernil (roast pork shoulder) is the Puerto Rican dish. But who can wait till it's cold outside again? Perfect for summery taco-centric parties and a snap to prepare, pernil is too amazing to devour only once a year. (And we've already talked about how meat is not going down without a fight.)
Through the marvels of modern cookery, one needn't schlep to a tropical paradise to experience this tangy, garlic-pierced treasure. Simply marinate the meat and cook for four to seven hours in the oven. Yep, it's that easy. Our taste-tested recipe after the jump provides loose guidelines, but adaptations are welcome, and will put you on the path to finding a pernil recipe of your own to love.
Using a sharp knife, remove the pork shoulder's skin (we used a seven-pound roast for this recipe) and as much fat as possible (or desired). Score the skin and top of the shoulder. In a blender, make a paste of five to seven cloves of garlic, two to three peppercorns, a generous pinch of dried oregano, half a cup fresh orange juice, three tablespoons of olive oil, a splash of white vinegar and salt to taste.
Massage the paste into the pork, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. One hour before cooking, remove the pork from the fridge. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F while it comes to room temperature. Place into the oven on a roasting pan covered with foil. About once an hour, check meat and baste with drippings. After about three hours, remove foil. Meat is done after about four hours, though every hunk of pork differs, and when skin becomes crispy.
As we've noted, swine flu cannot be transmitted through the consumption of pork. Support farmers. Buy a shoulder. And eat it!
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5-12-2009 @5:59PM jekyll said... With half a cup's worth of orange juice and plus the oil and vinegar, only oregano and five CLOVES of garlic doesn't really seem like enough solids to constitute into any sort of paste.
Are you sure it's not five HEADS/BULBS of garlic?
Reply
5-12-2009 @6:29PM BraH said... When you cook on a spit in the open like that, how do you:
Keep sand from blowing and sticking to the meat?
Keep the smoke level low as to avoid the rancid tartness of oversmoked meat? I mean, 24 hours would produce one mean smoke ring.
Keep the ham from falling apart while turning on the spit?
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5-13-2009 @10:33PM Chris said... I'm confused by the recipe. You state that we should first remove the skin, but then later instruct us to score the skin, and that the pork is done when the skin is crispy. Do we keep the skin or not? (And I hope you say yes, since my fondest memory of an authentic pernil involved a frenzied devouring of the crackling skin.)
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5-19-2009 @9:44AM Jose said... I neglected to include what's done with the skin after scoring: Place it back on the shoulder for cooking, then enjoy the delicious and crunchy skin alongside the pernil.
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