There was a piece on the Today show this morning about making a pork roast that got me interested:
http://www.today.com/id/54761126/ns...-pork-shoulder-asian-salad-more/#.UzClH_ldX4s. Of course, I didn't follow the recipe - just used it to inspire me.
So I walked down to the butcher shop at around noon and bought a 3.5 lb pork shoulder. I had some weird Mexican bitter orange marinade in the fridge (tried it on chicken some time ago, and didn't like it at all), which turned out to be what the recipe was about - poured about 1.5 cups of that in the crockpot along with the roast, fattiest side up, and then squeezed a couple of oranges I had around that were kinda old, plus I grated the zest off of one of them (a lime would have been good too, but I didn't have one on hand) and put that on top of the roast, along with a bunch of garlic, salt, pepper, adobo seasoning, cumin piled on of the roast and some into the fluid, and then I added an onion too (because I don't know how to cook in the crockpot without an onion anymore). Then I cooked it on high for about 6 hours. At the end, I added some multicolor small potatoes, and a bunch of carrots, and finished it off. The roast fell apart, and I put it in a bowl, spooned out some carrots and a couple of small potatoes and mashed them with my fork a bit, and poured a bunch of the juice over the meat and veggies.
It was freaking delicious! The bitter orange and garlic goes REALLY well with the pork - not a combo I would have thought of. And now I know what to use that bottle of marinade for! If you can't find the marinade, it is called mojo - bitter or sour orange version - and there are a zillion recipes for it on the interwebs.
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Mojo_(sauce)
The basic recipe consists of olive oil, large amounts of garlic, paprika, and cumin. Flavorings such as vinegar, lemon, orange or lime juice may be added. The most typical use of this sauce seems to be papas arrugadas con salsa mojo, or potatoes with mojo. Mojo is also commonly served with fresh bread rolls at the beginning of a meal. Similar sauces, also known as mojo, are also popular in Cuba and throughout the islands of the Caribbean, Hispanic or non-Hispanic, due to heavy Canarian emigration to the Caribbean, and have even influenced some barbecue saucesin the Deep South region of the United States, particularly the states of Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. The flavor can be made of almost everything, from tomato or pepper to avocado.
In Cuban cooking mojo applies to any sauce that is made with garlic, olive oil and a citrus juice, traditionally sour orange juice. It is commonly used to flavor the cassava tuber and is also used to marinate roast pork.[1]
http://www.today.com/id/54761126/ns...-pork-shoulder-asian-salad-more/#.UzClH_ldX4s. Of course, I didn't follow the recipe - just used it to inspire me.
So I walked down to the butcher shop at around noon and bought a 3.5 lb pork shoulder. I had some weird Mexican bitter orange marinade in the fridge (tried it on chicken some time ago, and didn't like it at all), which turned out to be what the recipe was about - poured about 1.5 cups of that in the crockpot along with the roast, fattiest side up, and then squeezed a couple of oranges I had around that were kinda old, plus I grated the zest off of one of them (a lime would have been good too, but I didn't have one on hand) and put that on top of the roast, along with a bunch of garlic, salt, pepper, adobo seasoning, cumin piled on of the roast and some into the fluid, and then I added an onion too (because I don't know how to cook in the crockpot without an onion anymore). Then I cooked it on high for about 6 hours. At the end, I added some multicolor small potatoes, and a bunch of carrots, and finished it off. The roast fell apart, and I put it in a bowl, spooned out some carrots and a couple of small potatoes and mashed them with my fork a bit, and poured a bunch of the juice over the meat and veggies.
It was freaking delicious! The bitter orange and garlic goes REALLY well with the pork - not a combo I would have thought of. And now I know what to use that bottle of marinade for! If you can't find the marinade, it is called mojo - bitter or sour orange version - and there are a zillion recipes for it on the interwebs.
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Mojo_(sauce)
The basic recipe consists of olive oil, large amounts of garlic, paprika, and cumin. Flavorings such as vinegar, lemon, orange or lime juice may be added. The most typical use of this sauce seems to be papas arrugadas con salsa mojo, or potatoes with mojo. Mojo is also commonly served with fresh bread rolls at the beginning of a meal. Similar sauces, also known as mojo, are also popular in Cuba and throughout the islands of the Caribbean, Hispanic or non-Hispanic, due to heavy Canarian emigration to the Caribbean, and have even influenced some barbecue saucesin the Deep South region of the United States, particularly the states of Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. The flavor can be made of almost everything, from tomato or pepper to avocado.
In Cuban cooking mojo applies to any sauce that is made with garlic, olive oil and a citrus juice, traditionally sour orange juice. It is commonly used to flavor the cassava tuber and is also used to marinate roast pork.[1]
