This one is a long time family recipe but it’s so amazingly simple, I don’t feel like I’m divulging any secrets by posting it. Maybe the family secret is that it really is this simple and that pretty much anyone, even those who “can’t cook”, can do it. All you really need are the right supplies and some time to invest in waiting.
Your shopping list:
- 5 lb pork butt (aka pork shoulder)
- 5-6 cloves garlic
- 1-2 cans of crushed or pureed tomatoes
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1 cup water
- salt and pepper, to taste
- hoagie rolls (good ones please!)
- oven/browning bag
Optional items I recommend:
- pecorino romano (or similar hard cheese)
- basil leaves, fresh
Add the water and cornstarch to the browning bag and mix until lumps are gone. Season the pork butt liberally with salt and pepper and place inside the browning bag (put in an oven safe dish for obvious reasons). Toss in the garlic, chopping to your preferred size; I just crush it with the side of the knife. Bundle it all up, poke a few holes in the top to let steam escape the put it in a 400° oven and forget about it for 90 minutes.
After your movie is over, take the pork out of the oven and let it sit long enough to handle. At this point it’s going to look like something out of a horror movie so just think of it as a cocoon of delicious that you have to crack. At this point you could eat it, if you wanted, but you’re really only halfway done.
When it’s cooled, pull the shoulder out of the liquid and cut into bite size pieces. Thin, wider pieces work much better than small chunks because you’re going to be doing additional cooking (think surface area) and building a sandwich with them. Once cut, dump it all in a crock pot (or similar cooking vessel) and be sure not to forget all the tasty drippings from the oven bag. The liquid is where all the good flavor is so do yourself a favor and don’t skip this step. I’ve been known to scrape all the bits off that are stuck to the bag and it couldn’t hurt for you to do the same. Toss in a few cans of your favorite tomatoes (I prefer Furmanos) and you’ll have something like the picture below. Note that I did the oven portion the day before so you won’t get the “brick of pork” if you do everything same day.
The length you cook it in the crock pot largely depends on how much time you have. The minimum should be 90 minutes on high (medium/simmer on stove top) but longer is always better. I’m not afraid to cook it twice that before eating and can’t really recommend against you doing the same. Here’s what mine looked like 4 hours and 5 minutes later.
Get yourself a nice hoagie roll, dish out some pork and add whatever combination you like of the Optional items listed above. If you’re not the sandwich type,boil up some pasta and ladle the resulting meat and gravy over it for a nice ragù.
Seems a lot easier than smoking some pork on the grill forever, is it really comparable though or just going for something completely different here?
Haha, pork butt 😀
The cut of meat and the “flake with a fork” tenderness is the same but the resulting flavor is a lot different than pulled or grilled pork. I bet if you finished the sauce with brown sugar and a few other ingredients, it would be more like what you’re thinking.
This is very much Italian and my grandfather was known more for making it without tomatoes, instead using water with a bit of oil for the base. I prefer the tomato base because even after all the big chunks of pork are gone, you have a hefty portion of sauce that ends up being dinner another night (namely tonight) and lunch the next day. 🙂
I forgot to mention the diaper for the crock pot. It was something new I tried, because it was sitting next to the oven bag at the store, and it worked really well. I’m not a fan of making extra waste but crock pots are notoriously full of bitch to clean. I just pulled the bag out, tossed it and put the crock pot away after it cooled down.