The Great American Slow Cooker Book (46 page)

1
Position the rack 4 to 6 inches from the broiler; preheat the broiler. Halve the tomatillos and set them cut side down on a large rimmed baking sheet along with the chiles. Broil the tomatillos and chiles until they begin to blister and brown, about 5 minutes, turning the chiles once. Remove the tray from the broiler and cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.

2
Stem and seed the chiles, then chop them and the tomatillos. Scrape both into the slow cooker, and stir in the pork, onion, garlic, cumin seeds, and fennel seeds.

3
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until the pork is tender enough to be cut with your worst knife. Stir in the cilantro, lime juice, and salt before serving.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
This pork is stewed, not braised. Expect a lot of liquid here—it’s not a soup, but definitely is soupy.

•
Don’t be tempted to use canned tomatillos. Their flavors will have dulled too far. Most large supermarkets carry tomatillos in the summer; almost all Latin American markets carry them year round.

•
There’s plenty of flavor in those caramelized brown bits still on the baking sheet. If you want, add a tablespoon or two of chicken broth while the pan is still hot and stir well to dissolve, then pour it all into the slow cooker along with the other ingredients.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Beware enhanced meat! Many markets inject pork shoulders and other larger cuts with a briny solution of broth, salt, monosodium glutamate (MSG, which can be labeled as “natural flavors” in the United States), and other additives, always shown as containing some “percent of a solution.” It’s all supposed to create a juicier, more flavorful roast; but this chemical engineering is unnecessary when you’re working with a slow cooker, which holds the juices at a low temperature, tenderizing the meat without losing flavor. You can almost always avoid this problem with organic meat, but read labels carefully in any event. If you do use injected pork, you may well end up with a much soupier dinner.

Serve It Up!
This Southwestern stew makes a fine dinner with cornbread or polenta. But it would also be great as a breakfast. Make it overnight, then serve it in bowls with poached eggs set on top.

1
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Season the pork chunks with salt and pepper; brown them in batches, turning them only after they’ve got a golden color, about 8 minutes per batch. Transfer the chunks to the slow cooker and continue browning as necessary.

2
Dump the onion into the skillet. Stir a few times, then pour in the broth. Raise the heat to medium-high and bring the broth to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits in the skillet. Pour the contents of the skillet into the slow cooker. Stir in the mushrooms; push the thyme and rosemary into the sauce.

3
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until the pork is gorgeously tender.

4
Transfer the pork chunks to a serving bowl or platter. Discard the rosemary and thyme sprigs. Defat the sauce in the cooker, using a flatware spoon to skim its surface.

5
Pour the sauce into a medium saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. Stir in the cream and chives; boil for 2 minutes, stirring quite often. Spoon some sauce over the meat and pass more at the table.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
The mushrooms aren’t cooked down to lose their moisture before they go into the slow cooker. That extra juice helps create the sauce—which is further concentrated after the pork has cooked.

•
The onion is not softened in the skillet, just warmed; instead, it is partly stewed in the broth, giving it a more assertive flavor, a better match with the sweet cream.

1
Set the pork butt in the slow cooker. Whisk the marmalade, soy sauce, tomato paste, vinegar, cloves, and red pepper flakes in a bowl until fairly smooth; smear the mixture over the exposed bits of the pork.

2
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours in a small slow cooker, 8 hours in a medium cooker, or 10 hours in a large one, or until the meat is quite tender but not yet shreddable. Let rest for 10 minutes uncovered with the cooker turned off, then portion the meat into large chunks, or transfer it to a cutting board and slice it into more manageable pieces.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
A pork butt is often used interchangeably with a pork shoulder. However, we feel the shoulder bone imparts great flavor to pulled pork and other dishes; we save the somewhat fattier, more decadent boneless pork butt for over-the-top roasts like this one.

•
They’ll be plenty of juice in the cooker after the pork roasts, but it’s mostly fat and a little too oily for a good gravy.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Despite an evocative name, the pork butt is taken from nowhere near the back end of a pig; instead, it’s from the front quarter, a fairly fatty cut. To be specific, the butt is the slightly thicker section of meat from the front shoulder, rather than the more pyramidal bit often called (confusingly!) the pork shoulder. Despite some minor differences, a Boston butt is just about the same thing as a pork butt; either will work here.

1
Halve the garlic cloves and sage leaves. Count the total number of pieces you’ve got (12, 20, or 40). Use the tip of a paring knife to make that number of small, thin slits all over the pork butt; insert a piece of garlic or a folded sage leaf into each hole.

2
Mix the mustard, brown sugar, whiskey, and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl until the brown sugar almost dissolves. Smear the mixture all over the pork. Set it in a large baking dish; cover tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours or up to 24 hours.

3
Unwrap the pork roast and set it out on the counter for 30 minutes.

4
Put the roast in the slow cooker, cover, and cook on low for 7 hours in a small slow cooker, 9 hours in a medium cooker, or 11 hours in a large cooker, or until the meat is fork-tender but not yet completely falling apart.

5
Using large tongs or a spatula, transfer the roast to a cutting board and let it rest for 10 minutes. Carve it into slices for serving, even those pieces that fall off.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Use a blended whiskey here, a sturdy, fairly dry mix without a lot of aged oakiness in tow. Do not substitute bourbon—too sweet a finish.

•
Dijon mustard is simply too assertive and won’t let the other flavors come through. A coarse-grained mustard still gives that piquant hit without overpowering subtler notes.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Technically,
whiskey
comes from the United States or Ireland;
whisky
comes from everywhere else, from Scotland to India, Canada to New Zealand. Use an American or Irish blended whiskey, sturdier in its flavor to stand up to the long cooking, rather than a fancy single malt.

1
Whisk the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, honey, tomato paste, vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, five-spice powder, celery seeds, and cloves in the slow cooker until the honey and tomato paste have dissolved. Set the pork in the slow cooker; turn to coat all sides.

2
Cover and cook on low for 7 hours in a small slow cooker, 9 hours in a medium cooker, or 12 hours in a large cooker, or until the meat is far beyond tender, well into the fabled realm of pulled pork.

3
Transfer the pork from the cooker to a large cutting board. Take care: it can come apart at the seams.

4
Skim the fat off the sauce in the slow cooker; pour the skimmed juices into a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Boil the juices until they thicken into a sauce, stirring fairly often, between 3 and 8 minutes.

5
Shred the pork with two forks; transfer the shredded meat to a serving bowl. Drizzle the sauce over the meat and pass extra on the side for dunking and dipping.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
This is a sweet, sticky barbecue, best served over white rice. Also, have some rice vinegar on the table for sprinkling on the meat.