Puerto Rican Pernil Roast Pork Shoulder Recipes

Steps:

• Combine olive oil, vinegar, garlic, oregano, salt, and black pepper in a mortar and pestle; mash into a paste.
• Make deep slits into the pork with a small knife. Stuff slits with the paste; rub any remaining paste over the pork.
• Place pork in a plastic roasting bag and put in a roasting pan with a rack. Let marinate in the refrigerator, 8 to 48 hours.
• Take pork out of the refrigerator, uncover, and bring to room temperature, 1 to 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
• Roast pork skin-side down in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 2 hours. Flip pork and continue roasting, skin-side up, until juices run clear and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center reads at least 145 degrees F (63 degrees C), 2 to 4 hours more.

Steps:

• Wash the pork shoulder.
• With a sharp knife, make 1 inch deep cuts into the pork.
• With mortar and pestle crush garlic, oregano and black pepper together. Add olive oil, vinegar and salt. Mix well.
• Spoon some of the garlic mixture inside the small cuts around the pork, and spread remaining mixture all over the pork.
• Place pork in an aluminum turkey pan (skin side up); cover with aluminum foil tightly. Refrigerate at least 8 hours. (I have marinated this for as long as two days.).
• Bake in pre-heated 325 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 5 to 6 hours.
• Remove aluminum foil and bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for another hour or until skin is crisp. Closely watch this so you don't burn the skin (chicharrone).
• Pork should be well-done and tender.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 300 degrees. Score meat's skin with a sharp knife, making a cross-hatch pattern. Pulse garlic, onion, oregano, cumin, chili, salt and pepper together in a food processor, adding oil in a drizzle and scraping down sides as necessary, until mixture is pasty. (Alternatively, mash ingredients in a mortar and pestle.) Blend in the vinegar.
• Rub this mixture well into pork, getting it into every nook and cranny. Put pork in a roasting pan and film bottom with water. Roast pork for several hours (a 4-pound shoulder may be done in 3 hours), turning every hour or so and adding more water as necessary, until meat is very tender. Finish roasting with the skin side up until crisp, raising heat at end of cooking if necessary.
• Let meat rest for 10 to 15 minutes before cutting it up; meat should be so tender that cutting it into uniform slices is almost impossible; rather, whack it up into chunks. Serve with lime.