Background
This Italian pork roast is an old family favorite. It is made with pork shoulder and baked. This makes it conceptually similar to Cuban Pork which I detail here: https://bronkalla.com/blog/2020/03/19/cuban-style-pork-shoulder/ . However, it is quite different from the rolled Porchetta you may see on many recipe sites. It is exceedingly simple to make. We will typically have it as winter comfort food or summer picnic sandwich meat.
I make it basically the way my little old Italian grandmother taught me. Seasonings are very simple with garlic, dill, pepper and salt. Our family was originally from the north of Italy and did not use fennel. Feel free to reduce the dill and add fennel if you prefer. One of these days I will make some with chopped fennel bulb, but that is an experiment for the future.
Preparation
Start with a large stock pot or dutch oven.
For our typical batches, we will use a 8-10 lb pork shoulder (a.k.a Boston Butt) that has been boned and cut into 3 or 4 large chunks. With a large pan you might fit in more (or 2 smaller shoulders), however do not crowd the meat too much as you will need to be able to flip the pieces over to get them to brown properly in the second phase of the cooking.
Remove as much of the large pieces of surface fat and the soft Intramuscular fat as possible Place the meat chunks in the pan and start seasoning.
Seasoning
As my grandma said: “make it white with garlic powder (I use granulated garlic), green with dried dill and black with pepper”. My wife does not like it too peppery, so it is more of a light grey with fine ground black pepper. I do not have measurements as we have always done this by eye but you will need several tablespoons each of the garlic and dill and probably 1-1.5 TBSP of black pepper. Do NOT use garlic salt as it won’t have enough garlic flavor and the meat will end up far too salty. Flip the pieces and repeat the seasoning until everything is evenly coated on all sides. It is nice to have help for this spice step to avoid getting meat juices on the spice jars. For an added treat, throw in the peeled whole cloves of a bulb or 2 of garlic (but watch carefully that they don’t brown too much and become bitter).
You need some liquid to keep everything moist and prevent burning in the bottom of the pan. However the meat is not submerged in the broth like Carnitas. I like about an inch of liquid to start. A bottle of beer is about right and my personal favorite is Leinies Honey Weiss for slow cooking meats. Do NOT use an IPA or other hoppy beer. For a twist on the flavor, try some hard apple cider or white wine instead of beer. It is then easily gluten free for those that need it to be, such as my daughter.
Roasting
Cover and roast at 300F for 3 hours. However at this point, the meat is missing the caramelization & browning. The Maillard reactions will drive a lot of the flavor, so we move to the second phase of cooking. Now is the time to taste and add the salt. I will normally add 1-1.5tsp of fine salt at this point. Raise the temperature to 325F and convection roast for 2 more hours. Turn the meat every 30 minutes or so to bring up some of the grey underlying surfaces to the top to brown and get crispy. It is OK to have the browned parts go back into the liquid as you turn the pieces. Make sure there is always some juice under the bottom layer of melted fat. You don’t want the bottom to burn. Add water or more beer as needed to keep at least ¼” of water under the liquid fat layer, as you continue cooking.
To serve, pull the pieces out of the pan and scrape as much of the browned, crispy bits and caramelized goo off the bottom of the pan as you can (it is delicious) and place it on the meat. You can slice but we most often simply shred the meat (and it is fall apart tender at this point any way). The fat should be drained off and discarded (I pour it on the burning pile out back). You can serve immediately as you main dish, or save it for sandwiches (hot or cold) later. The leftovers freeze beautifully. We typically chill the meat and then vacuum seal in serving portions. It makes for a quick and delicious weeknight dinner.
Family Porketta Story
Our favorite family porketta story is from my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. It was a bit Italian pot luck feast at a a park in Iron Mountain, MI. My grandma had made 5 porkettas to serve (both in the regular oven and the woodburning oven in the basement). They were a hit of course and there was one left over that was untouched. The extended family cleaned up and we all went over to my grandparents house. Around 9PM or so, folks were getting hungry again and the question of the hour was: “Where did the last porketta go?” as we could not find it. So the search began, with everyone searching the house and looking in the cars sniffing for the delicious scent of garlic and pork. After 15 minutes or so, it was located in our car under some blankets. It was brought in and everyone feasted again with porketta sandwiches. Yes, I know now this was not ideal from a food safety standpoint, but it was delicious.
Mark Bronkalla