As an on-off Octo-lacto vegetarian I have a love for meat that can only be gained by having too much time apart. While I respect those that choose to be vegetarian for moral reasons, that isn't my main motivation. I truly feel that all creatures deserve a fair life and a respectable death, and factory farming very rarely provides that. On top of that, I feel like consuming animals loaded with drugs/ hormones that are bred to be deformed with quick growing meat and that has chemicals released into their body from all the stress they undergo isn't what I would call healthy or tasty. I try to buy my meat local and from small operations. The price is usually higher, and while there is no guarantee that conditions are any better it is a step in the right direction. Either way, humans have evolved to be omnivores and I am not one to argue with evolution. Meat and seafood in moderation is my philosophy. For more info on this I recommend reading the book “Eating Animals”.
Rant over. Let’s cook some pork!
First, what is meat? Basically four things: Water, muscle, connective tissue and fat. How each of these react to heat when cooking is going to be important. With heat, connective tissue and fat will soften/dissolve. Heat will also toughen up muscle fibers, making them constrict and push out all the water and flavor in the process. This is also true for “shocks” to the meat. Adding a cold piece of meat to a very hot liquid or surface could tighten up the muscle fibers to an undesirable extent. A fine balanced needs to be reached to get the texture of the meat perfect, and changed based on what animal and what cut.
I am going to start with pork shoulder. This cut of meat is best cooked slow at a lower heat. I am going to use my trusty slow cooker and poach it in a liquid solution, but what? Pork has a good meaty flavor but is relatively bland, and works very well with a complex sweet flavor and earthy vegetables. I decided on onions, garlic, chicken broth, seasoning, and honey. How much though is going to take an understanding of how the liquid will flavor the pork.
As I mentioned, meat already has water. A lot of water, actually. Around 70% by weight. As the pork cooks liquid gets pushed out naturally so we need to find ways around it. First one is by changing the water, adding salt is a common technique. Salt will increase the pressure of the water and help push it into the meat. This principle is why brines work. Next technique is that while heating the muscles will have it constrict and push water out, but while it cools it will absorb some of that moisture back. So, a salt solution to help from the beginning, then having the meat cool in a flavorful broth. To be practical and save some money, if about 2 pints of liquid is needed to cook the pork in we mainly need to focus on the small amount of cooling liquid.
I am going to set it up as this:
Cook the pork shoulder in a solution of 1 part honey, 3 parts chicken broth and 6 parts water. Once cooked, I am going to have 4 batches of meat cool in different solutions.
- Dry
- Hot Water
- Hot Cooking Broth
- Hot Cooking Broth that is reduced by ¼
It's done!
Half hour before taking the meat out, I took some broth out. I reduced it, seasoned it, and added more honey to taste.
I took out the pork and weighed out 5 oz portions for each cooling jar.
Results:
Dry
weight: 4.7 oz
taste: tough with an ok flavor.
results: Water evaporated out and concentrated the flavor, but left the meat tough and dry
weight: 4.8 oz
taste: tough with a bland flavor.
results: A bit of a surprise but made sense when I thought about it. If the liquid has more salt it will create a pressure to infuse the meat, and a liquid that has less salt will suck the salt, liquid and flavor out
Broth
weight: 5.3 oz
taste: tender with a subtle flavor.
results: When breaking the meat apart the difference was obvious. The pork came apart with little effort at all. When trying a bit the flavors were subtle but pleasant.
weight: 5.3 oz
taste: tender with a great flavor.
results: Looked and brook apart similarly to the regular broth solution, but tasted like it was turned three notches up. The same result could of been obtained by seasoning the broth more. However. by reducing and seasoning the broth that is needed, money is saved and I had more control over the flavor
Now what to do with all this pork?
Making the pork took very little effort, but made me hungry anyways. Do I made a quick wrap with the reduced broth batch. I wanted to add a little complexity so I decided to broil some in my toaster oven. This will cause the fat and the protein to have the millard reaction and sugars from the honey to caramelize:
Made a quick wrap with sour cream and spinach. A tasty and very complex sandwich for something that looks so simple:
For the rest
I put the rest of the pork in the fridge, it will last 4-6 days and can be frozen, but it will be eaten before then. The pork works for tacos, nachos, chili and many other uses
Recipe
Ingredients:
- 6 pound pork shoulder (picnic cut) trimmed of fat and cut into large golf ball pieces
- Onion cut in half and peeled
- 6 garlic cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 cloves
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- Can of chicken broth
- 3 Tablespoons honey
- Water to cover meat
- 3 Tablespoons honey
- Salt and pepper to taste
1. Cook in slow cooker on low for 10-12 hours
2. 20 minutes before taking the pork out, remove 12oz of liquid and strain into a sauce pan. Simmer until reduced by 1/3.
3. Let the reduced broth cool to the temperature of hot soup, add honey and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Remove pork from the slow cooker. If necessary, brush off debris with paper towel. Add to reduced broth in a zip-lock back or appropriately sized bowl.
5. Let cool to "warm" then break meat apart with fork.
6. Store in fridge for 4-5 days or use immediately
