Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder

Living in a house with 5 grown adults, two who are unable to currently work (myself, since I am still considered a “visitor” in Canada, and my mother in-law who is currently disabled) means I have to get creative with meals and I am always on the lookout for good deals at the grocery store. The local store here tends to have all the “prettier” cuts of meat and therefore more expensive, however every now and then they’ll have the less common pieces and usually for a steal. My husband and I stopped at the store to grab a couple things for dinner when he suddenly tore off towards the meat department and came running back with the biggest piece of meat I’ve ever seen! As he proudly hefted an 8lb picnic pork shoulder with the hock still on into the cart, he excitedly declared that it was *only* $11.00!! Now, as I said before I had never worked with a piece of meat so large before. My mother had made plenty of picnic roasts when I was younger but I don’t remember there being a whole leg attached, with the skin! Being the adventurous culinary seekers that we are we happily brought home this pork shoulder like it was a prized trophy. And so began my search on how to cook this darn thing!

We spend a lot of time on the food channels so we knew that slow and low was the way to go... but how?! One of my favourite foodie sites is Chowhound. Their message boards are usually filled with quality tips and recipes so that was my first stop. After reading a bunch of recipes I happened upon this post and decided that it sounded tasty yet simple enough that I couldn’t screw it up. What I didn’t realize was I don’t own a slow cooker big enough to fit the whole pork shoulder in! So... back to the drawing board I went. Eventually I came across this post and decided to combine aspects of both recipes together. The results were a success and tasted fantastic!

Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder

1 7-8lb Pork Shoulder

2 Tbsp Garlic Powder

2 Tbsp Ground Cumin

A light sprinkling of chilli powder, salt, and pepper.

Lemon Juice (to baste with)

I decided to go simple with the seasoning since it was so much meat that I knew we’d be using it for various things over the course of the week and I didn’t want any conflicting flavour combinations.

First I set the oven to 450 degrees and went about the task of loosening the skin from the meat and spreading a bit of my spices under the skin then I scored the top of the skin being careful not to cut too deeply. I finished covering the rest of the meat with the rest of the spice mixture and placed it on top of a rack inside a deep roasting pan. I brushed it with some lemon juice and placed the roast in the oven for 30 minutes.

Pork shoulder before any cooking

After the 30 minutes, I lowered the heat to 250 degrees and let it cook for 7 more hours. I would rotate the pan every hour and baste it with more lemon juice each time.

About 4 hours into the cooking time

After the 7 hours of slow roasting I switched the oven to the broiler and crisped up the skin till it was nice and bubbly on top... it happened so quickly I almost burned it! So keep a careful eye on it during this part.

Crispy skin after being under the broiler! YUM!

I let it rest for about 10 minutes then sliced off chunks of meat for my husband to shred and I removed the crispy pig skin which was happily and furiously devoured by my mother in-law. The meat itself didn’t have much seasoning to it but the juiciness and tenderness made up for it and it tasted great in the tacos we had that night. I think we’re planning on making some BBQ pulled pork sandwiches with the leftovers and who knows what else. There’s so much meat left after feeding 5 people already that I might just have to freeze some for another time!