Rub Your Butt Before You Braise It
February 9th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Posted in Recipes
Pork shoulder with dry marinade
I’m revisiting my current favorite braised pork shoulder from Bruce Aidells’s Complete Book of Pork. I originally wrote about it here, but after taking delivery of a gorgeous butt from our local dairy and opening to the recipe again I realized I had neglected a couple of things.
First, there should be a heaping tablespoon or more of chopped rosemary along with finely chopped sage (or dried sage) in the dry rub.
Secondly, bacon does add another element of flavor. In this round, I chopped 1/4 pound of the Black Forest bacon from Whole Foods we like so much. Brown this in your Dutch oven to render the fat, then brown your butt in the fat.
Thirdly, do add 1 1/2 pounds of thinly-sliced cabbage to the carrots, onion and sauerkraut.
Finally, I did find a bottle of Guinness to use as the braising liquid. Close your eyes and image all of this along with paprika and caraway seeds. A slice of the finished pork over a heap of the paprika-caraway-rosemary-sage-Guinness-bacon-kraut-infused vegetables is almost too delicious to bear.
What our finished roast looked like
Picture yourself eating this butt.
That does look very good!
Celia