Spicy Shoulders
A long time ago, I traveled to Danville for a Spanish wine-tasting with Kareasa, the wine goddess herself. To our great delight, the wines were accompanied by a roasted pork accented with garlic and chipotle chilies. Kareasa and I debated whether we should just grab the pork shoulder and run out of the place (hey, there are tons of wine stores, we don’t have to return to this one ever again…). Instead we tried, somewhat subtly, to eat our weight in roasted pork while discussing wines in a somewhat dignified manner (okay, that didn’t work because we were at least 15 years younger than the next youngest person there).
Since then, I have dreamed of that roast pork. It was tender and lusciously flavorful with spicy chipotle and sweet garlic to compliment the buttery meat. Yesterday I decided to find a recipe that approximated those flavors. This is the one that I used.
I made a few adjustments to the recipe based on what I had in the kitchen. I omitted the oregano and used ground cloves instead of whole cloves. I seared the pork shoulder until it was lightly browned instead of a darker browning. The searing took some time because I used a 3-lb. pork shoulder, but the final results were worth all of the prep time.
After the pork is ready, I let it rest for about 10 minutes. I also steamed some corn tortillas in the microwave by wrapping them individually in paper-soaked towels and heating for 1 and 1/2 minutes on high. Let the corn tortillas rest for a minute then unwrap them and serve immediately with the pork. Enjoy!
October 24th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I’m with you - I could pig out on pork. Thanks for the idea. I’ve been in a porcine kind of mind.