Pernil el Horno

When Rodney and I were in Puerto Rico, we had the pleasure of partaking in some pernil. It is very similar to carnitas and so, so, fabulously delicious. If possible, I'd make a bed of this stuff and writhe in it.

The first time I decided to make it was for a small gathering of my siblings and nephew -- prime time to cook a big hunk of pig. At the time, when I Googled "pernil el horno", I got just a couple hits: one by a Puerto Rican lady, the other by Tyler Florence. Guess which one I picked?

Right on! The Puerto Rican one from the El Boricua site. This last time was my third time making it and I have a couple of ideas on how to improve. I'll get back to that after I cover the good stuff. As usual, the recipe here tells you how I did it. Click the link to see the original recipe.

Pernil el Horno

3.5 lb pork shoulder - picnic cut (with fat)

4.5 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp crushed oregano

3/4 tbsp olive oil

3/4 tsp salt

In a small bowl mix together the garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, and olive oil. Mix well. Rinse the meat and pat dry.

Starting at the wide end, cut the fat away from the meat, leaving the narrow edge attached and keeping it all in one piece. Leave enough fat connected so that you can flip it over to the side while you season the meat itself.

Make very deep slits all over the meat and season the meat making sure that seasoning goes into all the slits.

Season the inside of the fat with a bit of the seasoning also - just that one side by running your hand on it. Put the fat back over the meat to look the same as before it was cut and sprinkle it with salt.

Refrigerate the shoulder, covered with plastic wrap, for 24 hours.

Let the meat get back into room temperature before cooking (about one hour).

Place the meat in a roasting pan with the fat side up. The fat side up will make nice crunchy "cueritos." Do NOT cover with foil.

Preheat the oven to 400 F for at least 30 minutes before placing the meat inside. Cook one hour, then reduce temperature to 300º for about 2 hours or so - DO NOT TURN MEAT. When the meat is done, you can prick it on the side with a fork to see if it shreds (or a meat thermometer will read 185F).

Remove the meat from the oven and let it rest on the counter for about 20-30 minutes before carving.

To carve, remove the cuerito completely and set aside.

Serve this with tortillas, rice and beans (we like the prepackaged New Orleans beans and rice to go with this, though the brand I can't recall at the moment).

I mentioned earlier that there were a couple things I'd learned and/or would do differently considering my three trials:

1. Cook longer and slower -- each time that I made this, the pernil didn't "fall apart" or "shred" as expected, though it did taste real good. See this page to find out how shredded pernil should look.
2. Add liquid and cover to create a braise rather than roast. The hunk of shoulder/picnic has some collagen-ous stuff that needs to be broken down in a bad way.
3. Use a bigger hunk of meat than 3.5 pounds -- when I made this the first time, I used two 3.5 lb chunks and simply forced them to hug each other during marinating and cooking. That first one turned out much better than the last two times I made this (with only a single 3.5 lb. chunk)
4. It's probably not necessary to cut the fat away to rub the fat/meat interface down with spices -- I found that the fat/skin would just curl up anyway. What's the good in that? I want the fat to leak onto the meat, not off to the side of the meat! (This last time I tried to pin the fat/skin down to the meat with the thermometer, which worked out somewhat ok.)
5. When rubbing the meat down before marinating, do it right in the roasting pan! That's how I did it the first time and it reduced the number of dishes requiring washing.

When I do this next time, I'll take this items into consideration and report back.

Cost: I only buy pig picnic when it's about $0.69/lb, so $2.42. The rest of the stuff we have anyway. I suppose if you consider we bought the pack of rice and beans, that'd add another $2.50. So...$2.50 per serving (2 servings).

Yup, I definitely need to try this again. If I remember right, El Metate has picnics on sale this week...

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