Last week my grocery store (Stater Brothers) had bone-in pork shoulder roast on special for $.99 a pound. That’s a good deal even with the bone-in. So I got one figuring I could freeze it and slow cook it when the weather gets colder.
But, the smallest they had was a 9 pounder—too big to shove into my pretty much full freezer so that bad boy had to get cooked up over the weekend. What to do? Well, I was going to shred it but I wanted to try something a little bit different. I’ve been wanting to try Mojo and this was the perfect opportunity.
Mojo is a traditional Cuban marinade and sauce. It’s made with sour orange juice and it creates an incredible flavor. It’s actually pretty easy. If you can get sour oranges great. Otherwise use a mix of orange juice and lemon or lime juice.
The roast is going to take somewhere around 6 hours to slow roast in the oven. The flavor was terrific and I’ve got enough shredded pork roast in the freezer for three more dinners (after dinner Sunday and BBQ pork sandwiches on Monday). So here’s how I did it and how it came out:
Recipe: Cuban Mojo Pork Roast
Summary: Pork shoulder roast is tender and juicy when it’s slow roasted in an orange juice based Mojo marinade.
Ingredients
- 5-6 pounds of pork – shoulder or butt, with or without bone.
- 2 cups of orange juice—fresh or in a carton or from concentrate
- 1 cup of lime or lemon juice – from a bottle or fresh (about 3 whole fruits)
- 1 whole onion chopped
- 3 tablespoons crushed or minced garlic (fresh or jarred)
- 2 tablespoons of oregano – dried or fresh
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Take large pork shoulder and pierce deeply all over with a knife, so it will absorb marinade.
- If it has a “fat cap” score it diagonally into a 1” diamond pattern with a sharp knife trying to not cut into the meat. (Mine had a fat cap and skin. I should have removed the skin first and ended up removing it about halfway through cooking.)
- In a large bowl, mix together orange and lime juice, chopped onion, garlic, oregano and cumin. (Because mine was 9 lbs. I doubled the marinade recipe).
- Place pork in a large baking pan or dutch oven or a big foil baking pan (my preference). Pour marinade over pork and season with salt and pepper. Cover with foil.
- Store in refrigerator for from 4 hours to overnight. Turn pork a couple of times to make sure marinade is evenly distributed over meat.
- Later, place pork, still foil covered–but tented not crimped–in a 350-degree oven. Bake 5 – 6 hours.
- Baste with marinade, from bottom of pan, every hour – cover again and continue baking.
- During the last couple of hours, you may need to add water or more orange juice, a cup at a time, as liquid cooks out (actually I added a couple cups of orange juice and about a cup of chicken broth) .
- Check tenderness of pork at about 5 hours. It’s done when pork easily separates with a fork—just stick fork in meat and turn—if it turns easily it’s done.
- Cook another hour if not tender enough. Cooking time may vary by an hour or so, depending on the size of the pork roast.
- Remove the pan of meat from the oven. Then carefully move the meat to a large cutting board and let it rest for 20-30 minutes.
- Get out a bowl and strainer and pour the liquid left in the bottom of the pan through the strainer into the bowl. Put the remaining bits from the strainer into a different bowl (this tastes fantastic by the way, like a orangey flavored relish).
- Once strained, the liquid makes a terrific sauce. If it’s a bit too liquid, put it in a small pan on the stove over medium heat and add a cornstarch slurry (1 tbsp cornstarch, 2 tbsp cold water) and stir it well until it thickens.
Preparation time: 20 minute(s)
Cooking time: 5 hour(s)
Number of servings (yield): 12
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
To serve, you can either break off large chunks of pork or you can shred the entire roast and then serve portions with some of the sauce drizzled over the pork.
That’s Cuban Mojo pork roast. This will taste fantastic. You’ll pick up the flavor of the sour orange marinade and if you’re using a bit of the sauce it’s even more flavorful. Plus, you’ll have lots of leftovers for other meals. (See Cheap Bastid’s posts on left over roast beef for some ideas on left overs at: http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/shredded-leftover-roast-beast-part-1/ and http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/shredded-leftover-roast-beast-part-2/).
This was really, really tasty and pretty reasonable. It was worth the time of the overnight marinade and the 6 hours it took to roast. And we’ve got plenty leftover too—I’ll be doing some posts on how we use the leftovers.
The Cheap Bastid Bastid Test: The bone-in pork shoulder roast cost $9. The marinade took about $1 worth of orange juice and $.25 worth of lemon juice plus about $.50 in onion and garlic. So the total was $10.75. We’ve already had a total of 5 meal portions from it and we’ll get another 6. So, this is going to end up costing well under $1 per serving. That’s inexpensive even if the 9 lb roast yielded only about 5 lbs. of finished meat.
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
This looks wonderful, Walter! My husband and I love doing pork roasts on the grill! Just did one in the oven last week and have another in the freezer I want to grill soon. I look forward to trying your recipe on for size!
Thanks. This recipe would also work on the grill–low and slow, of course. I often do roasts or turkey breast in a foil pan over an indirect fire too. The mojo marinade and sauce is terrific!
That looks amazing, think I may have to give it a try this weekend…starting to
get a bit more confident with the cooking after
following so many recipes online Submit it at local food stores san diego.