Thanksgiving 2.8 Recipe #1: Pernil O Pierna Asada Estilo Cubano, Cuban Roast Pork

Cuban Roast Pork w mojo sauteed onions and foliage.

Since Thanksgiving 2.8 is right around the corner (303 days as of this writing), I wanted to start taste testing as soon as possible. This is the very first recipe I have tried. I want to get the big centerpiece dishes out of the way as early as possible this year. I chose pernil because when I asked all of our friends who are of Puerto Rican/Caribbean descent they each mentioned one or two special dishes, but they all mentioned having pernil for Christmas dinner. When I did my cookbook research I noticed the same thing. Some form of pernil was mentioned in several islands' holiday recipes. I happen to like pork shoulder, and one of the better recipes I made for 2.7 was pork I thought this would be a logical place to start.

Ingredients:

4-6 pound pork shoulder

2 C sour orange or fresh lime or lemon juice

1 bay leaf

2 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp cumin powder

2 Tbsp salt and 1 teaspoon salt.

1/2 tsp black pepper

20 cloves garlic peeled (cloves can be left whole)

cuban mojo sauce 

2 large onions sliced in thin rounds

1/2 C roast pork pan drippings

1/2 C reserved garlic and lime sauce mixture 

Directions: 

THE NIGHT BEFORE: Take the pork shoulder and poke deep holes into the meat with a pairing knife. Make the holes at least 1/2" wide and at least 1/2" deep. This doesn't have to be exact. Just make holes all over the roast.

Next take the salt and rub about two tablespoons all over the pork. Try to stick your fingers in the poked holes to penetrate the salt into the meat. (It says about 2 tablespoons of salt, but if it is a larger piece of meat you might need as much as three tablespoons).

Next, in a blender add the lime/lemon/sour oange juice, garlic cloves, bay leaf, cumin, oregano, pepper, & the 1 teaspoon salt. Blend on high until all is liquified. This is the Cuban Mojo, pour one cup of the mojo in a jar cover and reserve for later. 

Pour the rest of the sauce all over the roast making sure to rub the mojo sauce deep into the pork meat into the holes. Finally, sprinkle a little more oregano, cumin, black pepper over the entire roast again.

Cover with aluminum foil; and refrigerate until the next day for roasting.

COOKING DAY: Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Remove pork from the refrigerator let stand on the counter for around hour (this is an important step, don't skip). Place the pork roast on an elevated rack in your roasting pan. Put it into the preheated oven.

Depending on how large a roast you have it will take from about 3 to 5 hours to cook (this is further changed if you have a bone-in roast or boneless). Pour a half cup of the reserved mojo and baste your roast every hour with some of the mojo. Cook uncovered.

The roast is done when the internal temperature reaches 145-150 degrees. Let the roast sit for 10-20 minutes before carving.

While the roast is resting. Pour the pan drippings into a frying pan over medium heat and add the onions. Fry them in the drippings until softened. Next take half cup of the reserved mojo from the refrigerator and pour into the onions sauteing everything for about five minutes more.

After the rest time, slice all of the roast and pour the mojo with onions over the meat.

     Overall, this was a fairly simple recipe. I love cooking these pork shoulder dishes. They may have a long prep time (marinade) and a long cooking time (4-6 hours), but they always taste great. The minor amount of work to make the sauce and only a few steps to prep the meat were so simple a knife capable child could have done them. The only change I made to the recipe was the removal of the bone. I took it out to make the carving afterward a bit easier. This is in no way necessary.

As far as flavor goes I can see why this is made every year. The outside had an almost sweet flavor to it, from the marinade I imagine. The interior meat itself falls apart as its eaten. That interior meat had a subtle flavor, but it was possible to taste the citrus and garlic. The onions were a great accompaniment. They have a much more powerful flavor, but when eaten with the meat as intended, it was great. I was very lucky with this recipe. The very first one and I know I will be making it for TH2.8. I couldn't ask for much more than that. The only caveat being that I would have to make two 5 pound roasts to serve as many people as I want. I could cook a 10 pound roast but I wouldn't get as much marinade penetration or browning. I will most likely make 2 seperate roasts. The tasting event I am going to plan for the end of February will help me make the final decision. 

Post Thanksgiving 2.7: Scandinavia Wrap-Up

Welcome back to Thanksgiving 2.com. It has been a couple months since Th2.7, and I feel I have had ample time to look back on the event objectively. I have had a chance to speak to everyone that came, and take in their opinions, good and bad. I'll take this entry to figure out what can be done to keep improving my signature event.

First, I'm going to list all off the positive and negative items that came up or were answers to my questions. Then I will go over how I'm going to rectify the negatives. I'll save any new ideas or praise for the positives for the next entry.

The Negatives (or stuff to improve)

• Outdoor temperature control
• Food locations that were not in the kitchen or outside
• Not enough room on the new dessert table
• Not enough mashed potatoes or stuffing
• Better knowledge of when the turkeys were being served 

The Positives

• The outdoor tenting set-up
• The outdoor buffet style food arrangement.
• The open beer bottle selection
• The beer tasting event

I am generally happy with the negatives this year. Happy? Yes, happy because these are all things I feel are relatively easy to fix. By far the easiest issue to fix is the turkey finishing time awareness. I know when they will be done to within 20 minutes. I simply need to either do a quick walkthrough of the property and inform everyone, or set out table cards in the beginning of the day with a rough timetable written on them. The cards could also have a neat fact or some other tidbit on them. I'm not quite sure what I would do there. Also, I have decided to add an electronic element to the proceedings. I will be using the Twitter/Instagram/Facebook accounts I have set up to let everyone know "turkey is out of the oven, 20 minutes till carving." This was suggested by a few people, and since I have my phone on me all the time it should be pretty simple to accomplish.

The second item I can fix is the amount of mashed potatoes and stuffing I had available. I didn't realize how quickly they had both run out. I'm going to hope that means that they were liked, and not that people were starving. I've decided that I will be making either 15 or 20 lbs of mashed this year. I have not decided quite yet. I think it is going to come down to whether or not if I have to peel all of the potatoes by myself. If I do have to do them by myself then it will probably be 15 lbs.

The third item to fix will be the amount of space on the dessert table. I found a new home for the desserts this past year. It was a bit larger than previous years, but I made several more desserts this time around. To alleviate the space issue I have decided to add a second or third level to the table through the use of multilevel pie stands. I want to be able to present several pies and a trays of cookies to everyone all at once. The dessert table was absolutely packed this past year. I know I am capable of either finding or building a pie/cookie stand that is at least 3 levels high. I think elevating the pies (of which I had 6) will give me enough room to alleviate this problem.

The fourth and last of the easier issues to deal with is the non-kitchen/non-buffet food locations. This only became a problem (and it was only mildly a problem) because of a gaffe on my part. I forgot to inform guests as they were arriving of the 2 other food locations as they arrived. I am also pretty sure I didn't use the invitations as well as I have in previous years to inform everyone of how the house would be set up. I will make a point of informing everyone that there will be some food in each room. I may make a 3D map of the house and post in in the invitation, here on the blog, on Twitter, and on Instagram.

Finally, we come to the most difficult thing to deal with at Thanksgiving 2, the temperature outside. I always knew this would be the hardest part to deal with every year. Since our friend David has been able to provide us with the "jet engine" heater the past 2 years I thought we had the problem solved. It still wasn't a perfect solution. I believe we will need that in addition to something else. I have found some propane patio heaters on Amazon that should help immensely. I have all year to purchase at least one of these. I think with the patio heater combined with David's heater I will have a lot more control over the situation.

There you have it folks. Another successful TH2 in the books. Only a few small issues came up this time, and I believe all of them are fixable. In my head I will now be looking forward to TH2.8. No more looking back on what I could or should have done. Only thoughts on how I can make the next one the best one yet. I want more people, more food, and more enjoyment.

Next time find out what the theme of Thanksgiving 2.8 will be.