Mojo Braised Pulled Pork from An Unapologetic Cookbook
In this case it’s not Pulled
Sometimes things aren’t so simple
Time: 5 hours 45 minutes + overnight marination
Ingredient availability: 4/5
Difficulty: 1/5
I won’t lie. I don’t think I’ve ever had or hear of Mojo Pork before seeing this recipe in Joshua Weissman’s An Unapologetic Cookbook. One thing that made me interested in trying this recipe, other than the picture looking tasty, is that this meat is used in another recipe from his book: Cubanos. No, I don’t think I’ve had a Cubano before either, but the picture looked good. The analysis for the sandwiches is coming a little later.
Key Ingredients and Omissions:
You may need even more citrus than this
In all honesty, at a surface level, all of the ingredients are fairly easy to find. No ingredient was omitted. However, I feel the need to mention that the recipe calls for a boneless pork shoulder and I can’t recall ever seeing a boneless pork shoulder at my local grocery store. This does make a difference in the cook, which will be discussed later. Also, I do find it odd that the recipe calls for lime juice or “seville orange” juice as if the average person will have better access to the seville orange (which is more commonly known as a bitter or sour orange). Although that doesn’t really change the outcome of the recipe, I just find it weird that in this recipe there is a less common ingredients suggested as a substitute where as in most other recipes no substitutes are provided for obscure ingredients. It should also be noted that you will need more limes and oranges than the recipe says to use for zest.
Tools:
Large Pot/ dutch oven
Blender
Rasp Style Grater
Cooking Review:
Making Marinade: 1 hour 15 minutes
Making the marinade is really just adding all of the ingredients excluding the pork and chicken stock in a blender and blending until smooth. Most of the time is spent zesting, cutting, and juicing. The recipe really doesn’t say to break down the shallots or chiles before adding them to your blender, but It doesn’t hurt to give your blender a little head start, especially if you don’t have the most powerful blender. As far as the juicing goes, it took me 3 oranges to get just under 1 cup of orange juice and 6 limes to get about 3/4 cup of lime juice. Keep in mind that the recipe just says the zest of 2 oranges and 3 limes, which could be misleading. Once everything was added to the blender, I blended it until smooth and light in color before adding to a bag with my pork shoulder, reserving a cup of it. The shoulder I bought was about 8 pounds, so I cut it so that what I used for this recipe was just over 5 pounds. The pork was left to marinate in the refrigerator for about 22 and half hours.
Braising and finishing Pork: 4.5 hours
I transferred the pork and marinade to a large pot and added some chicken stock until the liquid level was about half way up the pot. I then transferred the pot to a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for 10 minutes before reducing the temperature to 350 and braising for 3 1/2 hours. Every now and then I turned the pork over that time period. Once that time had passed, the pork was at about 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which is done, but not pulled pork done. I still removed it from the oven and transferred it to a cutting board to rest while I strained the braising liquid. Then, I chopped up the pork into small pieces, as it would be impossible to shred at this doneness. Some of the strained braising liquid was added to the chopped pork to add some moisture and flavor.
Analysis:
So, there are some issues with this recipe. In my mind, a recipe should give the user the tools and pointers to make a successful end product. While what I ended up with was safe to eat, it was not what was advertised. Saying to cook something like a pork shoulder for X amount of time without giving a temperature target isn’t enough. Sure, it will be done after 4 hours, but it still may not be shreddable. Some of you may think “well if it’s not falling apart when you take it out of the pot, then it’s not done/shreddable.” Yes, this is generally true, but not everyone who would use this cookbook and make this recipe would know that. For how easy and simple this recipe is, the end makes it very easy to miss the mark. For something like this, the temperature is what matters more than the time. The time is something nice to know to give you an idea of how long it may take, but without the target temp, which should be over 200 degrees, would be much more helpful. Oh, and also adding the target temperature would make the fact that you use a bone in vs boneless shoulder less important. Obviously the bone in one will take longer to cook, but even a boneless one may not be done in the 3.5 hours. Ok, so the pork doesn’t shred, how was it otherwise? As far as the texture goes, it is pretty tender, still. Thanks to being tossed in the fatty braising liquid, it retains a nice amount of moisture, as well. The flavor is very light, with hints of the citrus that was used in the marinade. Here and there, I could pick up on some caramelized flavors (despite the very minimal browning that was on mine) which was better than the average bite. If you use the reserved marinade as a sauce, then you really get all the flavor you were missing. The marinade sauce is very fresh and citrusy with a good amount of spice. The marinade is the best part, but there might not be enough to go along with the whole shoulder. So, this recipe is going to get a 6/10. If you’re experienced with pulled pork, you’ll know to throw the time given out the window and go off temperature. Even if you used a boneless shoulder and it was done after 3.5 hours, I don’t think the flavors would impress you without the sauce. I think that this could have been improved by braising the shoulder in the marinade after rinsing off the marinade, drying, and searing it first, adding more of the good caramelized flavor, It has potential, but I don’t think the recipe takes full advantage of it, unfortunately.
