Pork, carrots, parsnips, onions, celery, and potatoes all cooked in a single dish. Well, except for that skillet. So, ok, pork, carrots, parsnips, onions, celery, and potatoes all cooked in two dishes.
I decided to do Beer-Braised Pork with Bacon again except this time I used a pork picnic. A while ago, I made pernil and one of the things I thought would improve it would be to braise it. What a better way to find out how that would work than to try it with a recipe I've already proven is excellent?
I prepped the 6 lb hunk of pork by removing the skin and excess fat.
Heat oven to 325ºF.
Cook bacon in large skillet over medium heat until browned and crisp; drain on paper towels. Reserve drippings in skillet.
Cook pork in drippings over medium-high to medium heat 5 to 6 minutes or until browned on all sides.
This thing just barely fit in my big skillet.
Reserve 2 teaspoons of the drippings in skillet; discard remaining drippings.
Place pork in shallow roasting pan large enough to hold pork surrounded by vegetables. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, sage and 1/4 teaspoon of the pepper.
Cook onion, shallots and garlic in drippings over medium heat 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Scatter around pork.
Add beer (I used Black Toad again) to skillet; boil over high heat 2 minutes or until reduced to 1/2 cup, stirring to scrape up any browned bits from bottom of skillet. Add broth; bring to a boil. Pour around pork; cover tightly with foil.
Bake 1 hour 20 minutes.
Scatter potatoes, carrots, parsnips and celery around pork; sprinkle vegetables with remaining 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Sprinkle bacon over vegetables.
Bake, covered, an additional 1 hour or until pork is fork-tender and pale pink in center. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.
MMM!! It smelled and looked so good!
Like last time, it took 3 hours to make, but wasn't a whole lot of work. Chop some stuff and let the oven do it's thing.
It tasted good, but I have to admit it was a lot better with the butt roast. Maybe the amount of braising time wasn't enough for this? It was still a little tougher than I'd hoped, but texture was much better than it was when I'd made pernil. Maybe there is something to the original recipe when it said to use a roast 3.5" thick. Huh.
Cost:
- bacon: $2.99/lb = $1.55
- pork picnic: $0.99/lb = $6.04
- onion: $0.39/lb = $0.20
- shallots: $2.29/lb = $0.71
- beer: $1/12 oz
- potatoes: $0.49/lb = 1.07
- carrots: um, $0.50
- parsnips: $1.39/lb = $1.74
- celery: $0.79/bunch = $0.10
While I will definitely do this recipe again, I think I'll stick with the butt roast. Should I try it again with a picnic, I'll use more braising liquid or flip the roast half-way through. And maybe I'll extend the first oven time but stick with the rest of the recipe.
Oh, and one other thing...the parsnips were really, uh, rooty I guess. The outer part was soft but the center core was hard. Maybe the ones I used were too big? I'll have to read up on how to select a good parsnip.
3 comments:
Yeah, sometimes big parsnips are too "rooty" and tough in the center. You can try coring them, that is taking out that tough center part, or just look for the smallest parsnips that you can find at the grocery store. I do love parsnips and they were one of those vegetables that I'd never heard of until I started cooking :-)
Lol! Since this post I did learn how to core a parsnip - amazing difference. Funny though is that once I learned how to do that I missed the fibrous/rooty texture. Textures, I have learned, are a major component to a meal for me.
That's cool that you figured that out and then found out you actually prefer it with the core!
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