When our local grocery store offered us the choice of a free ham, turkey, or bone-in pork shoulder as holiday deal for spending $400 this year, we opted for the shoulder. However, since we order our groceries online and have them delivered, the roast’s exact weight was an unknown. So, when it appeared at our front door, it was a whopping 8.25 pounder, at least three pounds more than I had expected. Consequently, I was forced to shelve the recipe I had chosen for it and look for an alternative.
A search through my cookbooks failed to yield a recipe for a roast of this size. Most that I found were for boneless pork shoulders ranging from 3 to 5 pounds. I tried to adapt them for my gargantuan specimen, but with little success. I even thought of butchering it and making a stew, but my husband and I were set on serving the guests we had invited a roast.
To meet this objective, I decided to google “8 pound roasted bone-in pork shoulder recipe” and, amazingly, the first recipe that appeared sounded perfect. Not only did I have all its ingredients on hand, but the recipe included relatively precise cooking times for roasts ranging from 3 to 10 pounds. There were also copious reader comments with glowing reviews and success stories. Best of all, it required a minimum of effort.
When it comes to Spanish cuisine, I can’t think of any better authority on the subject than Penelope Casas. While she may not be as famous as the celebrity chefs who dominate the airwaves, she ranks highly among those scholarly chefs, like Paula Wolfert, Fred Plotkin, or Nancy Harmon Jenkins, to name a few, who strive to capture tradition and authenticity in their recipes.
Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Well, this hoary hound recently learned a new one when he looked for recipes for a pork loin. I had a few parameters for my search: stovetop as opposed to oven; no fresh herbs (none were on hand); and easy (it was a weeknight). Ultimately, I found one that met all the requirements in Carol Field’s In Nonna’s Kitchen: “Pork Loin Roasted in Milk.”
To make room in our freezer, something that’s a much valued resource these days, I took out what I thought was a 3 1/2 pound lamb shoulder roast, which wound up to be 2 individual roasts. Originally, we had intended to use the lamb for Easter, but we needed the space.
The recipe I had chosen almost a month ago, “Tender Lamb Shoulder,” is from Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients cookbook. In fact, it was watching him prepare this dish on our local PBS station that motivated me to purchase the book, which has already provided the source for several posts on Cooking from Books.
If you follow my blog, you probably know that I gravitate towards recipes that use a modicum of ingredients, require a minimal amount of prep, and deliver loads of flavor. The subject of today’s post checks all those boxes: 5 ingredients, 10 minutes prep, and a panoply of flavors.
With limited access to the grocery store, I chose a recipe for a boneless chuck roast that required no more than what I already had on hand. Onions, a few herbs, a little tomato paste, and some white wine.
The recipe from Epicurious.com first appeared in the January 2005 issue of Gourmet magazine and, given its simplicity, it yielded, much to my surprise, one of the best pot roasts I’ve ever had either at home or in a restaurant.
Our local public library has a used-book store with an outstanding, ever changing, selection of cookbooks, usually in near-perfect condition and at extraordinarily low prices. I used to visit it at least once a week and buy one or two books each time I went. For the last couple of months, however, I’ve cut back on all my cookbook purchases primarily because of space. My shelves are literally full.
But a few weeks ago my husband, who works close to the library, came home one evening and presented me with, you guessed it, another find. It was a pristine copy of Michael Lomonaco’s Nightly Specials. “Where are we going to put it?” I asked. I’m sure that was not the response my better half expected, since he knew I had enjoyed the author’s cooking both at Windows on the World and more recently at Porterhouse Bar and Grill at the Time-Warner Center. “It only cost $2,” he replied. Just look through it and. . .”
Sometimes a recipe doesn’t turn out the way you hope. Such was the case this weekend when, inspired by a post by friend and expert food writer, Diane Darrow, about a stuffed pork-shoulder roast, I set out to make one. That our local Whole Foods was having a sale on pork butt motivated me even more to attempt to replicate Diane’s success. Attributing her recipe to one in an old issue of “Saveur,” she provided an illustrated account of her adaptation of the recipe capped with a photo of the finished roast. It looked so good.
Whenever my skeptical aunt was underwhelmed by somebody’s claim of having made an earth-shattering discovery, she’d make the sardonic aside “Beh! Ha fatto la scoperta di Cristoforo Colombo.” (“Eh! He made the discovery of Christopher Columbus.”) Well yesterday, which just happened to be Columbus Day, I was similarly underwhelmed by my discovery in the fridge of a pork roast that had reached its use-by date. First off, it meant that I would have to abandon the pasta recipe I had planned on for today’s post. Moreover, I had already done my shopping for the day and wasn’t up for a return trip to the market to look for any special ingredients that might be required by a pork-roast recipe.
Having moved from New York City to San Diego a little more than a year ago, I’m amazed by the frequent sales my local Ralph’s grocery has on meat: sales like 2 for 1 on chicken, 50% off on shell steak, and the one responsible for this post $1.99/pound on fresh pork shoulder.
When I saw a well cut four-and-a-half-pound shoulder roast for a $9 and change, I couldn’t resist. Although I’ve never made one before, I’ve often read how tasty they are especially when cooked low and slow.
Because my husband had been asking me for a porchetta-style roast and thinking that I could fulfill his request with this bargain pork shoulder, when I got home I started to look through Italian cookbooks for a recipe, but had little success. Perhaps this cut of meat isn’t popular in Italy. I then went online and found several recipes using pork shoulder that were based on this popular Italian street food.
A true porchetta, like those seen in Rome’s Piazza Navona during the holidays, is a gargantuan spectacle. Its made from the full carcass of a 100 pound pig and stuffed with its prepared entrails along with herbs like rosemary and sage, wild fennel, garlic, citrus, salt and pepper. Roasted whole, typically in huge bread ovens, it’s often served cold at street fairs in central Italy, especially in the regions of Umbria and Lazio
Scaled-down home versions of porchetta are typically made with a pork loin rolled into pork belly and seasoned with herbs and citrus. You can find a video of one being made here.
The roast I made yesterday, however, is a much simpler version that only approximates a true porchetta but nonetheless does deliver a lot of its intoxicatingly delicious flavors. I adapted my version from a New York Timesrecipe as well as one from Food and Wine.
There’s minimal preparation, but with the overnight marinating and more than four hours of cooking, it’s a two-day affair. Indeed, the only difficulty with this dish is waiting patiently for so long while the enticing aromas whet your appetite as the meat roasts.
It wasn’t that long ago when I was eating steak four or five nights a week. Excessive? Yes. But I was single then, often on the road, and a simple strip or sliced steak was my comfort food as well as the perfect foil for the Italian wines I was representing at the time. Alas, my quasi Paleo diet caught up with me when my cholesterol level neared 300 and my doctor, along with my spouse, said basta.
Now on a more healthful diet, which has brought my cholesterol way down to normal levels, I enjoy red meat at most once a week. More often than not, when indulging, I still opt for steak, but once in a while I go for grilled, roasted, or braised dishes like short ribs or lamb shanks or, as I did the other night, a roast beef.
This roast, however, was not the typical rib, sirloin, chuck, or round roast. It was a tri-tip roast. I had never heard of this cut before, but a quick search on my phone informed me that it’s a popular west-coast cut and so tender that it’s sometimes referred to as the “poor man’s prime rib or filet mignon.” I was still hesitant to try it, but when my better half pointed out that it was on sale at 60% off, I thought I’d give it a go.
When we returned home, I went back online to search for a recipe and found many. I finally settled on what was perhaps the easiest and fastest, which I found on the New York Times “Cooking” website, Grilled or Oven-Roasted Santa Maria Tri-tip. It had two ingredients: a tri-tip roast and a beef-rub of your choice. As I’m not much into grilling or rubs, I opted for the oven-roasted version and followed the recipe’s link to an All-Purpose California Rub.
This roast proved to be perfect for a weeknight meal, taking around 40 minutes to cook, or a little more if you prefer your beef more cooked. The rub takes only minutes to prepare. After it’s massaged into the meat, the roast should be covered and refrigerated for at least an hour or even better overnight.
I think our tri-tip lived up to its reputation for being tender and I would say had more flavor than a filet mignon. I served the roast with steamed herbed potatoes and peas. A few days later, we enjoyed it sliced thin at room temperature accompanied by a salad.
Below is the recipe for the oven-roasted version of this dish. If you prefer grilling, click on the New York Times link above for the full recipe.
Ingredients
Ingredients
1 whole tri-tip, about 2 pounds
3 tablespoons beef rub of your choice
Rub
2 tablespoons finely ground coffee
1 ½ tablespoons kosher salt
1 ½ tablespoons granulated garlic
1 heaping teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon brown sugar
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container
The Rub
Preparation
1. Trim silver skin. The meat may have a thick layer of fat, some of which can be sliced off, but keep a good amount to help baste meat.
2. Sprinkle meat with rub and massage lightly all over.
The Rubbed Roast
3. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour or as long as overnight. Remove from refrigerator an hour before cooking.
Roast Before Cooking
4. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil or other cooking oil to a large, heavy ovenproof pan. On stove top, heat on high until pan is very hot, then add tri-tip, fat side down. Turn heat to medium-high and sear roast for about 4 minutes.
Browning the Roast
5. Turn the roast and put it in the oven. Cook it for about 10 minutes a pound, checking with an instant-read thermometer until it reaches 130 degrees for medium-rare.
Roast After Resting
6. Rest roast on a cutting board 10 to 20 minutes. Slice against the grain. The roast is shaped like a boomerang, so either cut it in half at the center of the angle, or slice against the grain on one side, turn the roast and slice against the grain on the other side.
Cutting the Roast in Half
The Sliced Roast
Two days later, the roast made its way back to our table.
Left Over Roast
Wine Pairing: Rosso di Montalcino, Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon
Cooking from Books 