Pork Done Right

I don't post cooking recipes that often. I have talked about my salsa tech tree before as well as other salsas. I have also mumbled about Lyuda's family's variant of okroska (which we have a huge pot full of at home right now). However, I really enjoy cooking and have for some time. Experimenting is something I've always had fun doing in the kitchen. Finally, I think I have come across something worth sharing. Now some of you that know something about cooking meat probably are going to say, "Geez, Will, Didn't you know how to do that already?"

Actually, the recipe is very simple. I took a pork butt roast that I had in the freezer, defrosted it in the refrigerator[1] over a couple days. Then I took it out around lunch time and rubbed it aggressively with some salt and then let it sit for a couple hours. After that, I rubbed in a lot of garlic and black pepper. I left it to sit again. Finally, I basted the whole roast with lemon juice...and let it sit some more. I then put it on a broiler pan and rubbed some more salt into it and put the roast into the oven to broil fat side up for ten minutes. I then flipped the roast over and broiled for another five minutes. At THAT point I took the roast out...and filled the bottom of the broiler pan with water and covered over the meat and pan with aluminum foil after flipped the fat side back up again. I turned down the oven to 325 F (162 C). Then I let it sit in there "steaming" for 1 1/2 hours.

When I took out the meat and served it up, it all but melted in our mouths. Lyuda ate waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than she planned on. She declared I had made excellent pork. She'd not had better: that is high praise indeed from her. She liked it more than the Hawaiian BBQ we had.

Some quick notes. First, this does NOT work with beef. I have tried...and ruined some good roasts. Alternately, a very fatty pork roast is best for this. Also you can obviously use different spices. One other combination I like to use is to rub dried NMican chile powder in instead of black pepper and use lime juice instead of lemon.



1. While I use microwave defrosting in a pinch, I try to plan well enough ahead that I don't have to.