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| My Inspiration as it appeared in Food and Wine |
Last Fall, Food and Wine did a major article about roasts. The one that immediately caught my eye was a picture of a Dutch oven in which, semi-submerged, was a pork shoulder roast swimming in cream surrounded by halved heads of garlic, a parmesan cheese rind, a couple of sage leaves and pats of butter. I had never imagined poaching pork in the first place. I took one look at it and thought thank god I’m not kosher. This breaks every dietary law imaginable. With apologies to my Jewish readers, I just had to try it.
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| Surprise Factor |
This is no 30-minute recipe although that is all the prep time it takes. That’s why I am posting it just as the East Coast battens down for a winter snowstorm that will likely leave us housebound for a day or two. If you are in the path of this storm, I’d run right out and get the ingredients you need to make this heavenly roast. As it simmers in cream and buttermilk, the meat becomes almost shockingly tender. Of course, it’s far juicier than pork cooked in the dry heat of your oven. But the real treat here is the outrageously delicious sauce that combines subtle hints of garlic and the tang of Parmigiano in the richest of cream sauces. And there’s another aspect to this dish that adds immeasurably to the final plate. The pork is cooked atop wedges of Fennel. For color I served some simply sautéed spinach. In the interests of full disclosure, the similarities between this recipe and two others for chicken that I’ve written about earlier, made me decide to omit the recipe instructions to add lemon juice to the sauce. (If you’re curious, read A Tale of Two chickens here: http://chewingthefat.us.com/2015/04/a-tale-of-two-chickens-jamie-olivers.html. I also used a pork roast half the size of the one called for in the original and halved the rest of the ingredients. 5 lbs is a lot of pork shoulder! All in all, this really is a dish that will make you wish you could be snowbound more often. Here is the recipe.
1 quart heavy cream
4. Thinly slice the pork. Arrange the fennel and garlic on a platter and top with the pork. Garnish with parsley and serve the sauce on the side.
What would you suggest for starch side dish?
Hi lowandslow! I took a look at the recent and wondered if this would work. What about cooking baby potatoes with the pork roast? You might want to up the volume of cream. And of course, there’s always rice which would be lovely with the gravy. Let us know what you did! Bon Appetit!