Cider-Braised Pork Shoulder from ‘My Kitchen Year’
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Photograph by Mikkel Vang
Cider-Braised Pork Shoulder
Serves 8
I love pork shoulder because it’s one of those cheap, fatty, flavorful cuts that reward the patient cook. This particular dish, which is just about the easiest way I know to feed a crowd, is mostly cooked the day before it’s served. It does, however, require a covered pot big enough to hold a hefty joint of meat.
8-to 9-pound bone-in pork shoulder
1½ cups apple cider
3 cloves garlic
Salt
Pepper
6 large onions
Vegetable oil
Ask your butcher (or your farmer) for a bone-in fresh pork shoulder. Score the skin into a crosshatch pattern, cutting down through the fat to the meat. Then take a thin-bladed knife and pierce little slits all over the pork. Cut the garlic into slivers and poke them into the slits. Dry the meat well, then shower it liberally with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Cut the onions by halving them lengthwise and then ribboning them into long slices. Set them aside while you heat a couple of tablespoons of grapeseed or canola oil in a heavy pot and brown the pork on all sides. It’s not easy to turn a piece of meat this heavy, so use your most substantial fork, or two.
When the meat is browned on all sides, remove it to a platter and add the onions to the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they’re fragrant, golden, and caramelized. Stir in 1½ teaspoons of salt and the apple cider, return the pork to the pot, cover it securely, and put it into a 325-degree oven. You can forget it for the next 3 hours.
When the time’s up, remove the pot from the oven, uncover it, and allow it to cool. Put the cover back on and set the pot in the refrigerator overnight.
Two or three hours before you plan to serve dinner, take the pot out of the refrigerator and lift off and discard the solidified fat that’s risen to the top. Allow the meat to come back to room temperature, then reheat it in a 325-degree oven for another hour. By now it should be extremely tender.
Lift the pork onto a platter and measure the onion-cider mixture that’s left in the pot. If it is more than a quart, bring it to a boil and let it cook furiously until it’s reduced to one quart (4 cups). Taste and add as much salt and pepper as you think it needs.
This is great with mashed potatoes and warm applesauce on the side.
(A note on the liquid measurement: both the pork and the onions release a surprising amount of liquid.)
Reprinted with permission from My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl (Random House).
More meat dishes for fall entertaining:
Maple Pepper Glazed Pork Chops Recipe from ‘Brown Eggs and Jam Jars’
Roasted Pork Loin with Prosciutto & Rosemary-Fig Butter from ‘The Yellow Table’
Roasted Leg of Lamb with Black Cherry-Pomegranate Salsa from ‘Rose Water and Orange Blossoms’
