Daniel Boulud's Braised Pork Shoulder

Tonight we took a recipe out of Daniel Boulud's wonderful cookbook called Braise.  Pork shoulder with Guinness, dried cherries, and sweet potatoes.  I am a big fan of pork shoulder, and love to braise foods, but to be honest the dried cherries in the recipe didn't sound that good to me.  I am not a big fan of fruits in most of my savory dishes.  But thought that maybe it would be a good idea to expand my horizons and maybe try something out of my palates comfort zone.  In the end my wife and I both liked this dish quite a bit and would definitely make it again.  The recipe calls for Guinness, but I would think that you could substitute the Guinness with  Root Beer, Dr. Pepper, or Ginger Beer.  Hope you enjoy this recipe.

Ingredients

• 5 cups cups Guinness stout
• 1 cup dried cherries
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 (5 1/2 pound) pork shoulder roast
• Coarse sea salt or kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 large red onions, peeled and sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed black pepper
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely minced
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 5 whole allspice, crushed
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 3 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
• 2 pounds sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and roughly chopped

Method

- Bring the stout, cherries, and vinegar to a simmer in a saucepan.  Transfer to a bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let sit for at least 1 hour, or refrigerate overnight.

Guinness coming to a simmer with the balsamic and cherries.

- Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300 F.

- Warm the oil in a large cast-iron or Dutch oven over high heat.  Season the pork shoulder with salt and ground black pepper and sear on all sides until golden brown, 12-15 minutes.  Transfer the pork shoulder to a platter.  Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the fat in the pot.

Pork shoulder being browned.

- Add the onion and crushed black pepper to the pot and saute for 7 minutes.

- Add the garlic and continue cooking until the onions are translucent, about 3 minutes.  Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 2 to 3 minutes longer.  Add the pork shoulder, the marinated cherries and liquid, allspice, bay leaves, molasses, brown sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and 2 cups water.  Bring the mixture to a simmer.

- Cover the pot, transfer it to the oven, and braise for 1 hour, turning the pork once during cooking.  Add the sweet potatoes and continue to braise for 2 more hours, turning two more times.

- If the sauce is too thin or is not flavored intensely enough, ladle most of it off into another pot and simmer it until it thickens and intensifies.  Then add it back to the first pot.

Sauce was a little thin coming out of the oven, had to reduce it down  in a separate pan on the stove top.

- Slice the pork and serve with the sauce on top.

All ready to eat.

Really enjoyed this recipes and I was surprised that the cherries were so good in it.  I did have to reduce down the sauce quite a bit after it came out of the oven, also added a bit of butter to the sauce when it was just about done reducing.  Other than that I followed this recipe to the letter.  Again, this is not my recipe but was taken from Braise, which was written by Daniel Boulud and Melissa Clark.  A great cookbook.