Pork Shoulder Test Two
Alright, so after my first attempt at pork shoulder, I knew that I had to do it again. Since the weather is getting warmer and warmer, it probably would be a good idea NOT to use the oven for five hours. Yea… that is exactly what I want to do in July. You know what else does not look fun in the summer? Being a yellow break dancing dog in an empty parking lot at the side of a busy intersection. Yea, go watch the youtube video… Back to food. I actually had made pork shoulder two more times after the first try but those attempts were not documented because they tasted really bad. Haha. Weeee! This time around it was more successful.
The thing about pork shoulders is that you have to roast them for a really long time. And basically everyone says low and slow. If you look at the recipe for the Momofuku bo ssam, you see that first it is brined, and then it goes into the oven at 300 degrees.
If you are trying this at home, I think the brine really helps. If you want to test it at home, and you cannot eat ten pounds of pork shoulder, then just see if your supermarket has pork should halves. You would use less brine, and the ratio would just have to stay the same. The math is something like (1 unit salt : 1 unit sugar) : 1.5 unit water. Does that make sense?
Another difference is that instead of putting a dry rub on the shoulder and putting it in the oven for the duration of the roast, the bo ssam recipe just asks you to put it in the oven plain, and when it is “fork tender”, you can pull it out. After you pull it out, you can out a salt and brown sugar mix on the outside, then turn the oven up to 500 and caramelize the outside.
When you turn the oven up, be careful because the sugar burns easily and you will want to be near by to grab the pork shoulder if you smell smoke. This part of the process just takes a few minutes really. Then when it comes out, I cover it up and let it cool, then go watch youtube videos for fifteen minutes.
This “fork tender” business is kind of weird. The outside edges get fork tender faster than the part that surrounds the bone. Not every single part of the pork shoulder had the same level of tenderness. Yea, it was all cooked, but some parts were easier to pull apart with your fingers. I am not sure how to tweak it next time besides maybe cook it a bit longer to see if the meat closest to the bone will get more tender.
And I have been looking at my stats, and it says that you guys stay on for an average of one minute and forty seconds. It used to be longer! My guess is that everyone just comes here for pictures. And that is fine. But since no one reads the words, I am going to end this with a yo mama joke.
Yo mama so fat when she steps on a scale, it read “one at a time, please”
And for the record, I love my mama, and no one is allowed to make mama jokes on my mom. But I do want to hear your favorite yo mama jokes, or any jokes for that matter. Those of you who read up to this far, you can just leave it in the comments. Happy weekend folks.
Posted by Danny on April 18, 2008 at 2:57 pm
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