Ultra Crispy Roast Pork

Ultra Crispy Roast Pork

脆皮烤猪

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It’s not often for the local supermarket to carry pork shoulder with skin on and bone in. With such rare find, a lot of research was put in place. To sum up, to get ultra crispy crackling (so crispy, it is like eating potato chips!) and tender roast pork, patience is the key.

1. Skin needs to be dry, so let it stand uncovered in refrigerator overnight
2. Meat needs to cooked slowly for it to tenderize and not dry out, so low temp, long hours
3. Skin needs to be blistered, bubbled, thinned… to be super super crunchy, so high heat on already tenderized skin

The acquired pork shoulder, or Boston Butt, was of perfect size, a little over 8 lb with skin on really flat, and bone in. Rinse under cold water, and dry with paper towel. Rub liberally with salt and fresh ground pepper. Let it sit uncovered in frig overnight.

Take it out of the refrigerator early in the morning (we need a whole day to cook this thing!), it looks nice and dry. You can glide your finger across the skin without any resistance, or stickiness. Wipe away the salt and pepper from the skin. Let it sit in room temperature for at least 30 minutes.

Now comes the long cooking process, 250F, 8 HOURS! I took a nap, had brunch, went out for a nice walk, did grocery shopping while the oven is working. 4 hours into the cooking, it already looks wonderful and smells delicious.

4 More hours, it’s time to take the butt out of the oven. Make a tent with aluminum foil and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. It was a bit early (3pm) to finish it off and have dinner, so I let it rest for about an hour. (Oh, during the last hour of cooking at low temp, I was working on potato, which turns out to be the BEST roast potatoes ever!) At the end of the 8 hour cooking, the skin was thinned, oil dripped into the pan, meat is tender and it’s pulling off the bone by itself.

After resting for an hour, heat the oven to 500F, return the butt back into the hot oven. Before that, I put marinated potato wedges in the baking tray, and removed parchment paper. Turn the tray every 5 minutes, so the skin is cooked evenly. It’s fascinating to see the changes, little blisters, big blisters, merging blisters… Unfortunately, the oven door was a bit too foggy for a good picture. After about 15 minutes, this is what I got. Isn’t it beautiful?!

I made two sauces to go with the meat. Honestly the meat tastes wonderfully with just salt and pepper. Gravy was made with drippings from the first 8 hours of cooking. Fat was removed to marinate potato wedges. Add water to the dripping and 1 Tsp of flour and bring to a boil, then simmer for a couple of minutes. Memphis BBQ Sauce was made with ketchup, molasses, brown sugar, hot sauce, chili powder, cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce, apple cider vinegar, finely chopped onion and garlic sauteed in butter, bring to boil, then simmer to thicken.

While the butt is resting, lower the oven to 400F, flip the potato wedges (the underside should be crispy already), and bake for another 20 minutes. The end result is Ultra Crispy Roast Potatoes.

Here is a piece of the pork crackling, so crunchy, it’s like biting into potato chips!

Made another crispy shoulder, cut down the broiling time from 15 to 12.5 minutes to avoid burn spots on the skin. It is once again incredibly delicious!