Roasted Jerk Pork
This recipe requires marination and slow-cooking.
Jerk pork is the quintessential Jamaican dish. It's said to have been invented by Africans who escaped British slavery in Jamaica by running into the wild. By combining local ingredients with their traditional cooking methods, they came out with a spicy sauce which would be added to pork and cooked on a wooden fire. Modern cooks usually grill the meat with a smoker or roast the meat in the oven.
I've never been a fan of jerk myself, when I made the spice mixture myself or when I've had it at restaurants, so this time I decided that I would just buy a Jamaican jerk sauce and try it. It was the right decision. I was able to find Walkerswood jerk seasoning at a local supermarket, and chose the "mild" variety (which is moderately spicy). It gave me a whole new appreciation for jerk! It makes me think that scotch bonnet peppers, which I've never been able to find in California, are really irreplaceable for the jerk marinade.
Pork shoulder is a very fatty cut, so the recipe below will feed only 3-4 people, depending on how hungry they are. You will probably want to increase it to a 6 lb shoulder at least, and increase the amount of sauce proportionally.
Roasted Jerk Pork
Ingredients
- 4 lbs pork shoulder
- 1/4 cup Jamaican jerk spice paste
- juice of one lime
Directions
Make several cuts on all sides of the pork shoulder. Rub the spice paste onto the pork shoulder and refrigerate overnight. Remove from the fridge, pour the lime juice on the pork and let rest at room temperature for one hour.
Preheat oven to 450&de;gF. Line the bottom of a roasting pan with aluminum foil.
Transfer the pork shoulder to the rack of the roasting pan. Roast for 20 minutes. Reduce temperature to 325°F and continue roasting for 2-3 hours, until it reaches an internal temperature of 185°F. Remove from the oven and let rest for at least 15 minutes before serving.
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