Roast Pork (Pernil)
One of the key secrets to being a good weekend guest is bringing your hosts enough alcohol to make you tolerable and being willing to prepare a meal. It could be as simple as taking your turn at the grill or preparing a main course. I'm posting my recipe for Roast Pork (Pernil). It may seem strange to cook this in the summer given how hot it would make the average apartment. The situation I present is the perfect way to avoid heat stroke in the kitchen.
I admit my instructions are slightly idiosyncratic, so adjust accordingly to your situation and the naked children are highly optional.
Ingredients
* 1 head garlic, cloves peeled
* 3 tablespoons salt
* 1 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
* fresh ground pepper
* 2 juice oranges
* case of Coronas
* limes
* 1 (7- to 7 1/2-pound) bone-in pork shoulder with skin
* 1 or more very ice cold Bombay Sapphire martinis
Tools
* Mortar and pestle (preferable one that says, "Puerto Rico" on the side)
* cutting board
* One boning knife (or any sharp knife)
* roasting tray
* bowl that you can fit a wounded pork leg
* bottle opener
* china tea cup (not the good china)
The night before:
Be lucky enough to have a best friend that has a home near the beach and invites you and your family out to spend the weekend. Be even luckier that your friend has a separate house for you to stay in when you come and visit (and a kitchen that you can take over.)
Find that radio station that you listen to when your out at the beach - it's somewhere between the all country all the time station and Lite FM one they play at the dentist office. Mash garlic to a paste with 2 tablespoons kosher salt using a mortar and pestle (or side of a large heavy knife), then stir in oregano, a couple of squeezes of half a juice orange and 1 tablespoon pepper.
Using a small sharp knife, begin to separate skin from the fat of the roast, starting at the large end (think of any recent horror movie. Cackle maniacally while you do this. Make sure your family stares at you as if you've lost your mind. Make sure you have a cold Corona (or any beverage at hand but if you’re at the beach, go for the Corona) Make sure you leave the skin attached at the bottom part of the roast. It will appear that you have flayed the roast - good - you've done it correctly.
Make 1-inch-deep puncture wounds in pork under skin and on all meaty sides. Begin rubbing some of garlic mixture into slits with your fingers. Really begin to laugh maniacally. Finish your beer. When someone in your family tell you to shut up, rub any remaining garlic mixture over roast but not the skin. Pull the skin back over the wounded roast and rub with remaining teaspoon kosher salt. Transfer pork to a bowl or dish, cover with aluminum or plastic wrap and refrigerate, at least 8 hours or over night. Make sure you've left enough room in the refrigerator for your remaining case of beer.
The next day:
Wake up and realize that you're at the beach. Turn on the radio (it will remain on the entire day - it's my host's form of a home security system.) Convince the kids to come down to the beach with you to throw a few chairs down on the beach to save a spot for you before the beach gets crowded. Try to enjoy the magnificent view of the ocean while yelling at the kids not to jump in the water in their pajamas. Walk back to your cottage and try to stop the kids from screaming at the top of their lungs at 9:45 AM.
Grease the kids up with sun tan lotion and be amazed at how difficult it is to squeeze them into their bathing suits. Tell them that they cannot go to the beach unless they finish they breakfast and put their 'damn bowls in the sink' and 'no, you are not the damn butler'. Have two preteen children laugh in your face.
Begin the caravan of stuff that has to go to the beach. Realize that it's already about 11:00 AM and you still haven't started the pork roast. Take the pork at of the refrigerator and put it skin side up, in a roasting pan, and let it come to room temperature, about 1 hour. Put the dish that you have the pork marinating in the sink (remember that you're going to have to wash it out.) Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Go down to the beach.
At about 11:45 AM, announce that you are going back to the house and ask if anyone needs anything - remind the kids that it's a good time to take a real potty break (and stop recycling their fluids in the ocean.) When you’re back at the house and after to strip the children so they can go to the bathroom without soiling themselves, cover the roast tightly with foil and roast 2 1/2 hours.
Attempt to get the children back into their wet suits and debate with yourself if you can pretend that you are in Europe and let the kids swim nude. Remember that the noon rule has now come into effect and have your first Corona of the day (remember the lime.) Make several sandwiches - load up a cooler with the sandwiches, drinks (more Coronas with small container of limes), snacks and fruit.
Head back down to the beach with the swimsuit clad offspring and collapse in a beach chair under an umbrella. Begin reading through the pile of magazines you brought from home with you.
At about 2:15 PM, once again announce that you are heading back to the house, remind the kids that it's a good time to take a real potty break (say this in a very low voice so none of them will take you up on your offer.) Head back to the house with the garbage and the empties. Take roast out of the oven and remove foil then the juice of the remaining oranges (by now your kids have eaten the oranges, so you can use a 1/2 cup of orange juice or water) to pan and put back in the over, uncovered.
Replenish your Corona supply and head back down to the beach. You will have to check on the roast every half hour or so to add a little more water. Recruit the other adults to do this when they make the beverage run to the house.
At 4:30 PM, announce you are heading back to the house for the final time and offer to bring any spare chairs, beach toys, whiny children or empties. Check the roast - if skin is browned and crisp and meat is fork-tender, remove. Turn off oven and transfer roast to platter, cover loosely with foil and let stand.
Meanwhile, degrease the pan juices however you like to degrease and discard fat. Add 3/4 cup water and your degreased pan juices back to roasting pan and put roating pan back into the oven (remember that you have the pan in there.)
Strip your kids and allow them to run around naked under the outdoor shower unless or until your best friend's teenage son has come back up from the beach (no young teenage wants to see little girls naked.) Realize that it's 5:00 PM and reward yourself with an icy cold martini (it must be drunk from a tea cup, to correctly impersonate Jackie Gleeson. Remember sip and exclaim, Hmmm, that's good coffee!)
Cut skin off roast pork. (If skin is not crisp, roast in a shallow baking pan in a 475°F oven until crisp, about 10 minutes - remember to have taken out the roasting pan filled with juices.) Cut skin into serving pieces. Pull meat from roast in pieces using a fork. Serve meat with pan juices and pork skin.
See this didn't quite fit in my cabinet so it went in here.
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