After a late start to Sunday at DUB Pies, Iggy and I made our way down to the super market to pick-up something for dinner.  Right away I headed to the meat section to see if today was a cheap roast day.  I wasn’t disappointed; pork shoulder was only $1.19 a pound.  I’ve seen $0.89 a pound, but $1.19 is still a good deal.  I grabbed a smaller, eight pound, slab of meat.  Right away, I knew what the rest of the simple recipe would be.

I came-up with this a few years ago when I was home visiting Minnesota and at mother’s house without a car.  My mom had left me a pork loin and a recipe.  Though she seemed to over look the fact that the house was missing half the ingredients in that recipe.  Undeterred, I found some apples, onions, a bit of garlic, and a bit of apple cider vinegar.  Put it all together in a ceramic roasting pan covered it and let the flavors come together.  The result was a moist piece of meat, with a sweet apple sauce on the side, that has become my template for many a meal.

What You’ll Need:

• Some pork (shoulder, butt, loin, or whatever cut you’re in the mood for)
• A bunch of apples
• A bunch of onions
• Cider vinegar
• Fish sauce

How to Cook It:

Put the meat in a dutch oven (or some other heavy roasting device with a lid).  If you have a pork shoulder, or other fatty cut of meat, be sure to put the fatty side-up so that the juices run down over the meat over the hours of cooking.

Cut some big chunks of apple and onions and fill in the sides and the space above the meat.  It’ll be packed in there, but everything is going to cook way down.  Throw in a bit of apple cider vinegar, maybe a quarter to half a cup.  Add a little fish sauce.  This is some what optional, but the umami in the fish sauce will help bring out the flavors.  Tread lightly with this stuff though, while a few tablespoons will bring out the flavors, too much will be a disaster (take a wiff of the bottle and you’ll know what I mean).  Give the garlic a rough chop and mix it in on the sides of the meat.

Now cover this bad boy, put it in the oven, and let it cook for hours.  For a pork shoulder, target maybe 45 minutes a pound.  Uncover for the last 30-45 minutes or so to give the meat a nice crisp.

The Result:

The apple and onion cook way down and fall apart and mix with the pork dripping to form a sweet and savory apple sauce perfect for pork.  After hours of cooking, the meat falls off the bone and practically shreds itself.  As an added benefit, your home will be filled with wonderful Sunday cooking smells.

After the Sunday night meal, you’re almost sure to have left overs.  The shredded pork and sauce can then easily become a great pulled pork sandwich (just add some BBQ sauce) or some pulled pork taco.  The Sunday meal that keeps on giving.

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