hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with pork agrodolce that's right
we're doing italian sweet and sour pork although I guess translated literally it
would be sour sweet pork but either way this came out incredibly delicious and
even though I did this because it was freezing out and I was craving something
slow roasted and comforting ironically it reminded me of something that's more
associated with the summer months and why that is is going to be apparent in a
few moments so with that let's go ahead get started
with our braising liquid which will also eventually be our sauce and we'll go
ahead and begin that with some tomato paste followed by some vinegar and not
one but two kinds including some beautiful aged balsamic vinegar as well
as some good old fashioned plain white distilled vinegar which as you know we
add when we want to increase the acidity without adding any more flavor and then
once we have our a grow covered we'll move on to the Dolce and we'll go ahead
and add a nice big drizzle of honey and in case you're keeping score at home I
think that was the orange blossom honey but for something like this I think
anything's gonna work and then believe it or not we will follow that with one
mashed-up anchovy filet which might be a little bit surprising
unless you've watched this channel before then it's not and then we'll also
want to add a little bit of sliced green onion as well as some finely minced or
crushed garlic and then because it goes so amazingly well with roasted pork
we'll toss in a little bit of finely and freshly chopped rosemary and then we'll
finish up by seasoning with some kosher salt a ton of red chili flakes and then
last but not least some freshly ground black pepper and that's it we can grab a
whisk and give her agrodolce a nice mix and basically what we just made here is
sort of an Italian barbecue sauce which is what I was referring to earlier when
I said this sort of reminded me of some we'd eat during the summer all right we
got your sweet your sour your savory your salty or spicy and this really
would work beautifully with whatever you put a barbecue sauce on including of
course pork which is what we're using today so we'll set that aside while we
move on to cut up some pork shoulder also humorously referred to as pork butt
and what we'll attempt to do is cut this into about three inch pieces and don't
pull a muscle trying to get them exact all right just get them closed
it's all we ask and by the way the reason we're choosing pork shoulder is
because as you can probably see it's very well marbled with fats plus it has
a lot of delicious connective tissue so it really does shine in these braised
slower cook dishes and then what we'll do once our pork is portioned its
transfer that into our Bowl and give it the old sauce toss and for this I really
do recommend using your hands especially if no one's watching all right there has
never been a meat and sauce mixer invented that outdoes the bare hands so
we will get in there and get in there deep and we will keep mixing and
massaging until we're confident everything is thoroughly coated although
fair warning this feels so good even after its make sure you might go a few
extra seconds and by the way there is nothing wrong with that and then what
we'll do once our pork has been agrodolce
is transfer that into a lightly olive oil baking dish and we'll go ahead and
spread that out nice and evenly and that's it once we have that arranged to
our liking we will transfer that uncovered into the center of a 325
degree oven for about two-and-a-half to three hours or until tender and then if
you want about halfway through that cooking time we should probably pull
that out and flip the pieces over and if you're wondering what would happen if
you didn't probably not that much but by giving these pieces of flip about
halfway through we'll get some nice even browning and both sides of the pork will
spend about the same amount of time in that braising liquid so that's what I
did and I went ahead and pop that back in
for another hour and a half or so until I felt it was perfectly cooked and what
we're shooting for here is something that's very tender but not falling apart
so we will test that with a fork and it should pierce that meat fairly easily
and if it doesn't put it back in and by the way if you do have to cook yours
longer and your agrodolce seems like it might be drying out just add a splash of
water but mine was perfect which meant it was ready to serve
speaking of which we're gonna have to decide whether we're gonna skim the fat
off before we do that all right depending on who you talk to
that's either a great idea or the worst idea ever and personally I usually skim
off some but not all of it which reminds me I'm gonna give you a couple tips and
tricks about how to do that in the blog post but anyway that's going to be your
call I mean you are after all the Dolce and
Gabanna of achieving agrodolce nirvana in speaking of experiencing
pure bliss it might look like I served this up on polenta which would have been
a beautiful choice but I'm actually serving this on top of ricotta mashed
potatoes which were insanely good and I should probably do a video for that but
anyway I finished up with some sliced green onion and that's it my pork
agrodolce was ready to enjoy so I grabbed a fork and spoon to dig in and
I'm very happy to report this was everything I had hoped for and more
okay just plain chunks of pork shoulder roasted until just tender is gonna taste
really good but when it's been braised in that super savory sweet and sour
sauce we've produced something that's profoundly satisfying and delicious and
of course infinitely adaptable since you can switch in and out all kinds of
different vinegars and spices and herbs and sweeteners so I'll almost be a
little bit disappointed if you make it exactly like this but if you do it
really will be fantastic but anyway that's it my take on pork agrodolce I'm
not sure exactly what my friends in Italy would think of me calling this a
telling you barbecue sauce but - the smokiness that really is what this was
reminiscent of and as I was enjoying this I was already brainstorming about
things to do with this once the weather warms up and we do fire up the grill and
I kind of hope you're doing the same but anyway regardless of the season or any
specific reason I really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to
food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as
always enjoy
you