Slow Roast Shoulder of Pork

Slow roast shoulder of lamb is one of our most favourite things to cook and one of the things that gets the most hits on Dinner Diary. We’ve tried a couple of times to create something similar with pork shoulder but never really succeeded in getting anywhere close. It’s been a while since we last attempted it and it felt like a good time to try again. So, paying close attention to the mistakes we’ve made in the past, today we gave it another go.

And, we were successful! Sitting down to eat, I wondered why we had go this so badly wrong in the past. It was really easy: rest the seasoned pork (a quarter shoulder) on a bed of vegetables, sage and garlic with some water surrounding it (just enough water to cover the vegetables and stop them from burning but not enough to make much contact with the meat). Cover with some more sage and garlic (and poke some into any openings you can find in the pork) and cook for four hours at 150 degrees, basting every hour or so.

When it’s cooked, remove and rest the pork while you make the gravy: remove the vegetables from the roasting dish (if you like garlic then leave a few cloves in and squash them well), drain off the oil, add some white wine, some cider vinegar and bring to the boil. Thicken with cornflour and serve.

The pork remained beautifully tender and hadn’t dried out at all. There was a strong piggy flavour which was complemented really well by the cider vinegar in the gravy. A big handful of fresh sage would have been really good but we didn’t miss it particularly.

A good lesson is simplicity, no need to mess around with milk or varying temperatures like we have done in the past. Just roast the meat long and slow with a few aromatics and you’ll be rewarded with perfectly cooked meat that’s full of flavour.