Slow Cooked Rhubarb and Cider Pork

Oh what a delightful long weekend filled with delicious food and gardening. I went nettle harvesting for the first time and got TONS of nettles, planted most of the rest of the garden, read a bunch (Prairie Silence, the memoir of a gay woman from North Dakota), and did some visiting. The garden is looking to be in tip top shape - especially with the rain. It makes everything so green, and the soil so rich and brown!

My Charming Companion resting in the garden aisle

Rhubarb!

There will be an upcoming nettle post to go through the steps of collection and cooking, but first I want to share this recipe for pork and rhubarb. The sauce is lovely - and ultimately could also go on a pork chop in a simplified version - it is delicious and ingenious to use the rhubarb as the tangy substance for a barbeque sort of sauce. Yum. Which of course means that there was also a healthy dose of apple cider and honey, to offset said tangy-ness. Luckily I still have some frozen pints of apple cider from a family friend's apple pressing party two years ago. I have yet to find a way to eat rhubarb without lots of sweet in there - I guess it is just too tart to eat as a savory dish.

The pork roast turned out delicious, and it was super fun to use some of the beautiful rhubarb stalks from the garden. The pork cut I was using was actually a cut from a thigh, so it was not as fatty as a pork butt or shoulder roast - those would be best, but the thigh worked fine. My cut had no skin, which her original recipe calls for. The standard pork shoulder or butt sold from local farmers in Minneapolis seems to be sold without skin, so I changed the recipe to instead utilize tin foil. The recipe is from "Odd Bits" a cookbook I wrote about earlier that I thoroughly enjoy and hope to own one day. This was my first recipe attempt, and it went swimmingly.

Pork and sauce, served with wild nettles!

Slow Cooked Cider and Rhubarb Pork
6 pounds, bone-in pork shoulder
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1-2 T lard
2 c sweet apple cider
1 sweet apple, cored, peeled and chopped
8 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
4 cloves garlic
2 dried chilis (I used 2 t chili flakes)
2 fresh bay leaves
1 pound rhubarb, trimmed
2 T honey

1. Remove shoulder from the fridge about an hour before cooking.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Pat the shoulder dry and season with salt and pepper (not too much or the drippings will be too salty). In a heavy casserole or dutch oven, heat 1 T of lard (or bacon fat) over medium heat. When the fat is hot, brown the shoulder on all sides. 1 T of lard should be enough since the shoulder will release more fat as it cooks; if not, add a bit more fat only as necessary.
3. Transfer the browned shoulder to a plate. Tip off any remaining fat, then pour the cider into the pan. Bring to a boil, and stir with a wooden spoon to deglaze the pan, scraping up all the browned bits from the bottom. Remove the pan from the heat and add the apple, cardamom, garlic, chili, and bay leaves. Return the shoulder to the pan with any juices. Cover the meat with tin foil to trap the steam within the casserole (this is what the skin would be doing if you had some skin!) Cover the dutch oven or casserole with the lid, transfer to the oven and cook for 2 hours.
4. Check the meat -it should start to soften. Remove the inner tin foil layer, but keep the pan covered and return to the oven for another hour or so, until the shoulder is very tender.
5. Meanwhile, cut the rhubarb into 1 1/2 inch pieces and set aside. Transfer the shoulder to a serving platter (cover with foil to keep warm). Strain the liquid through a sieve (this is worth it to get the spice bits out! I didn't do it and wished I had...) into a large glass measuring cup and let stand 5 minutes (presumably to skim off the fat that will layer on the top - I did not do this). You should have about 2 cups. Skim off the fat and set aside for another use. Pour the cooking liquid back into the pan and place on high heat. Bring to a boil and continue to boil until the liquid reduces by half. Stir in the honey, then lower heat to a simmer. Add the rhubarb, and cook just until tender, about 5-10 minutes.
6. Carve (or tear!) the pork into slices (or hunks) spoon over the rhubarb sauce, and serve.
Yum!