serves 8 or more
Notes
You probably know dried porcini mushrooms, but porcini powder is something you might not be too familiar with. I use a lot of dried porcini in my cooking, for rubs, marinades, and stuffings; for me it is the Italian umami. You can purchase ground porcini powder, or make your own by grinding dried porcini in a spice grinder. I foraged for porcini as a young girl, and also in Long Island and upstate New York. Porcini are best eaten fresh, but if you happen to have a huge find of porcini, it is good to dry those you can’t eat right away and make your own porcini powder. Roast pork shoulder is another one of those festive preparations that require time to cook, but the oven does most of the work, and yields delicious results in abundance.
Ingredients
- for the seasoning paste
- 1 medium onion, cut into chunks
- 1 stalk celery, cut into chunks
- 10 garlic cloves, crushed and peeled
- Leaves from 3 sprigs fresh rosemary (about 2 tablespoons)
- Leaves from 6 sprigs fresh thyme (about 2 tablespoons)
- 2 tablespoons porcini powder
- Kosher salt
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- FOR THE PORK, VEGETABLES, AND SAUCE
- 1 bone-in pork shoulder roast (about 6 pounds)
- Kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 medium carrots, cut into large chunks
- 4 stalks celery, cut into large chunks
- 3 medium onions, cut into large chunks
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed and peeled
- 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 2 cups apple cider
- 1/2 cup brandy
Directions
For the seasoning paste: Combine the onion, celery, garlic, rosemary, thyme, porcini powder, and 1 teaspoon salt in a food processor. Process to make a paste. With the processor running, add the olive oil, and process until it’s incorporated.
To prepare the pork: Season the roast all over with 1 tablespoon salt. Rub it with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. With a sharp knife, cut deep slits all over the flesh of the roast, spacing them 2 or 3 inches apart. Fill the slits with some of the paste, and rub the rest all over the roast. Set the roast, fat/ skin side up, on a rack in a large heavy-duty roasting pan. Let it sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Once the roast has rested, roast it for 1 hour. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Remove the roasting pan from the oven, and remove the roast and rack. To the roasting pan, add the carrots, celery, onions, garlic, 2 cups of the chicken stock, the apple cider, brandy, and 1 teaspoon salt. Place the roast back in the pan, on top of the vegetables. Roast until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 175 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours, depending on size, and then remove it from the pan.
Mash everything in the roasting pan, then pour it through a strainer into a large saucepan. Press on the solids with a wooden spoon to pass them through the strainer. Discard anything that remains in the strainer. Defat the juices by skimming the fat from the top with a spoon or using a fat-separator measuring cup. Bring the defatted juices to a simmer. Add the remaining cup of chicken broth, and boil to reduce the sauce and thicken it slightly, 4 to 5 minutes.
To serve, cut the meat from the bone and slice it. Arrange the slices on a platter, and serve the sauce alongside.
