thoughts on pernil

Hmmm....pernil....aka pork shoulder, or pork shoulder butt, comes from the top of the pig's forelegs, like in the way of ham, only the latter comes from the animal's hind legs. It is a really affordable cut, with lots of fat marbling that translates into moisture and flavor during cooking. It is also a staple of Venezuelan feasts, and I learn it is as well for Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Despite having very similar approaches and flavors, they are all very different. Puerto Ricans add spicy peppers; Venezuelans, oregano. Cubans add orange juice, Puerto Ricans, a blend of lemon, lime and orange juices, as well as a rub of adobo. I remember eating it with a sauce of garlic, oregano, sugar, some moscatel wine and worcestershire. I figure there is no right or wrong answer here, just as long as there is at least three hours to marinate, at least four more in the oven and the result is fork-tender. Taking cues from a variety of sources, including this month's Bon Appetit issue, Serious Eats (a fantastic food blog) and my memory, I'm attempting to materialize my own vision of pernil.

Rub the pork with a lemon, salt and pepper and let sit in a roasting pan.
Purée in a blender: couple of cloves of garlic, a small onion, a cup of fresh cilantro, a whole jalapeño, a teaspoon of cumin, with a cup each of orange juice and pineapple juice. Season with salt, pepper and a couple of dashes of red wine vinegar.
Pour liquid marinade on pork, cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours, or preferably overnight.
Preheat oven to 450. Covered with tin foil, bake for one hour. Bring temperature down to 400, and let the guy hang out in the oven for about 4 hours. Everyone seems to agree that the desired temp of the meat should be around 180. But I don't have a thermometer, so I'm pretty much eye-balling it here.

(Bad cook disclosure: after the initial hour in the oven, this bad cook here laid down to read, aka rest her eyes, or otherwise known as taking a mid-afternoon nap, and thus left the pernil unsupervised. I woke, with an hour left on my timer, and the meat falling off the bone. All in all, the pernil was in the oven for three hours, and it seemed plenty.)

Remove foil and cook uncovered for about 20 more minutes for the meat to brown.
Move the pernil to a serving platter to rest. Transfer the pan juices to a small saucepan, add a dash of white wine and reduce. Strain the solids and reduce the cleared broth by half.

I served this with a succotash-esque side: leeks, shallots, garlic, yellow and green zucchini squash, sweet white corn and a few cherry tomatoes. Alone, the pernil was a little too acidic, too bright. I'd suggest an extra dash of salt and omitting the red wine vinegar in the marinade. But together, pernil and corn ragu, are a pretty amazing match and helped set the tone for the evening to come. Hmmm, pernil!

tryout recipes: some sucesses, mostly flops

I just made a cannellini bean and green chard stew, with carrots, zucchini and thyme. I've been reading loads of recipes about it, and took what I liked best about each of them. Ross Parsons, food critic at the Los Angeles Times in his book How to Read a French Fry, recommends baking the beans in a dutch oven in teaspoon of salt. He lists garlic, bacon, carrots and Swiss chard. Barbara Fairchild in the Bon Appetit Cookbook mostly lists canned beans, (but does reccomend soaking overnight if you use dried beans) but goes for classic flavors with sage, bacon and plum tomatoes. The Silver Spoon asks for canned beans, eggplant, bell peppers, tomatoes, parsley and basil. My grandma swears by pre-soaking the beans overnight and cooking on very low heat for at least two hours; she would add ham, carrots, chiles, sugar, cilantro.
I decided to loosely follow instructions. I soaked the dried beans for 24 hours; drained, replaced with cold water, brought to a rapid boil, reduced heat, and cooked over medium-low heat for about an hour and 15 minutes.
(In the meantime, I tackled a sanding project that was way overdue. I finally got a hold of a heavy-duty sander and went to town in my backyard. I have officially, and successfully, sanded, primed and finished a janky-looking shelf. The problem here is that my attention was definitely in the sanding, and I have to admit I forgot about the cooking beans on the stove....)
Back in the kitchen, on another pot, I sauteed leeks, shallots, garlic until translucent. In went about 8 chopped Nantes carrots (that had about five more days of fridge life left,) 2 zucchini squash, the chopped stalks from the chard, and 4 thyme springs. Cooked covered for about 10 minutes over medium-low heat. (By then, the beans were overcooked! Falling apart from their shell, the stock was clumpy and starchy from the beans breaking apart.)
Feeling disappointed and a little defeated, I still added the beans along with some of their stock and simmered for about 5 minutes. The result: not the gorgeous stew I had imagined, but something more like baby food. The remaining of the beans went into the freezer for a future use (or earthquake food.) Although pretty flavorful, the stew went right into the blender. Too thick for a soup, but perhaps good enough for a contorni? (I can see this going with some venezuelan-style pork butt---pernil.) Even better, I spread onto toast of a seeded baguette, added some julienned fresh basil, grated some parmesano and sprinkled some coarse salt. Served next to some mizuna drizzled with balsamic, there we had lunch!

The lessons:
Soak beans just overnight. 24 hours is overkill.
Keep an eye on the stove!
Don't overmix the stew ---the ladel bumps against the beans, bruising their shells.
Add the zucchini much, much later.
More salt, maybe lemon zest to serve?