Go to the Recipe: Tender, Smoky Mojo-Marinated Pork Shoulder
Can someone describe the differences in taste / cooking between Pork shoulder and butt - I've run into a few folks that seem to think they're interchangeable.
Read this recipe and it will explain. They're the same!
As it says at the top, just before the recipe: "Unfortunate name, but pork butt actually is shoulder. For realz. The story begins in Boston; Mental Floss has the deets."
Will ziploc style bags work for sous vide when you have liquid in the bag?
They are interchangeable, no difference in taste because they are one in the same.
Your question is two fold, first yes you can sous vide with liquid in the bag. However, Ziploc bags are not recommended when the temperature is over 158° F because the seams of the bags tend to fail at temperatures above 158°. If you don't have a vacuum type bage you can try to double bag it, I have done that with limited success.
I'm terrible at racing to comment
You folks would post something like this a few hours after I've already begun the brining process for another mojo marinated pork shoulder recipe! Guess I'm picking up another pork butt after this one's consumed.
Can you use chopped fresh pineapple with its own juice? Or is there something special about the canned variety?
You should be good to go with fresh pineapple, just make sure that it's finely chopped.
What is a good meat substitute for pork shoulder?
Can you guys explain the huge difference between the 8hr/60C cook time for a more steak-y texture here and the 24hr/60C recipe in the Beyond the Basics Sous Vide Course? Is the short time due to the marinade? If so, which elements of the marinade reduce the cook time?
I'm curious because I'm planning to do a jerk-style pork shoulder based on Kenji's chicken recipe at Serious Sats (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/08/jerk-chicken.html). I figured I could adapt the 24hr recipe but this new post has me thinking twice.
I'm also planning to hot smoke the shoulder for an hour or two after cooking and chilling (smoking before isn't an option). Would I want to reduce the sous-vide time at all for that?
I don't mean to contradict Brian, but you should 100% avoid fresh pineapple in this recipe. Fresh pineapple contains the enzyme bromelain which will turn your meat into a very unappetizing mush. Refrigerating the meat and marinade will slow down the reaction but as soon as you start cooking your pork will be mush. I threw out an entire batch of al pastor style pork a month ago because I dimwittedly used fresh instead of canned pineapple and the whole thing turned into a disgusting mess.
The heat treating of canned pineapple deactivates the action of bromelain.
This is just my take on it. With this style pork, chances are you're going to eat this on a sandwich (like their cuban sandwich), or cut relatively small. You're also getting some tenderness from the marinade (some of the acid will start to act on the protein and connective tissue). With the other recipe, you're taking this unmarinated, and cooking it low and slow so the texture resembles that of steak: a very tender cut. If you look at the video, those pork steaks are pretty thick: 1 in+. Something like this would be cut much thinner, so even if it wasn't cooked as long, you're still getting the same affect because it's cut more thinly. That's my take on it.
Isn't bromelain use for meat tenderizing? that might work to reduce the amount of time that needs to breakdown the pork structure. If you marinate for 24 hours and sous vide for 8, well, duh, it will happen but I think 2-3 hours will be perfect for both (depending on size). BTW, there's a bigger amount of bromelain in the core... the more you know...
The change from metric to American measurements states 450g in both cases. We have to do the math? I'm an old timer. lol.
Ok guys. I am a big fan. I've made a number of the recipes and have had great results. This one is a little strange. To be honest, I haven't made it yet but I was born and raised in Miami and I can't wrap my head around something called mojo that doesn't contain sour orange and lime. Mojo is usually citrus and garlic at its base and I have never seen jalapeno in Cuban cooking.This probably tastes great but isn't Cuban.
Brian, I agree. I am not Cuban, but I LOVE Cuban food and if I served this to my Cuban buddy he'd laugh himself to death. I'm going to try starting with this recipe's salt and seasoning but dumping the jalapeno, and putting in an equivalent weight of citrus juice instead of pineapple.
(We have a stellar Cuban sandwich shop in town, and I recently asked the chef there how he manages with no sour orange available. He said he uses half lemon and half orange juice instead. I can't argue with his results.)
We're all entitled to our own opinions regarding food and cooking. I was recommending it because of the bromelain. If cooking directly, they Will be some activity, tenderizing the meat, but it should be denatured in the cooking process. To each their own.
Be careful with the acid in the citrus juices and the long cook time under vacuum. If this were just a traditional grilled or braised dish, then the citrus mojo would be the obvious go-to, but things are gonna happen in the water bath...
My first - and last - exposure to the magical properties of bromelain came when I (unwittingly) used a pineapple-based marinade to turn 3 pounds of skirt steak into meat soup. Fun times.
I agree. When I cook a mojo pork shoulder sous vide I typically marinate it for 2 days then rinse it and sous vide it for 16 hours or so. I also reserve about half the mojo and cook it down to serve with the tostones I serve on the side.
I completely agree with you Brian, the thing is that there are tweaks people can do to make it not completely mush the meat, I was saying that what you do with the regular pineapple you could potentially cut cooking time. AFAIK pork shoulder is a tough cut that requires a loooong time in a sous vide to make it with the perfect consistency. I am curious to find out what will be the sweet spot using regular pinapple as a source of flavor and as a tenderizing agent. One note, flavors of canned pineapple and regular pineapple are different, of course, canned is way sweeter. Adjustments should be done with regular to match the sweetness (if needed)
there is a video?
The video i reference is here. There video is no with the Cuban pork recipe.
“Mojo” is a word you’ll see all over restaurant menus in the Canary Islands—the chain of beauteous land blobs off the coast of northwest Africa—as well as in Caribbean countries such as Cuba. In the Canaries, the sauce is typically made with either red or green peppers and served with potatoes and grilled meats. In Cuba, on the other hand, mojo refers to an acidic, citrus-forward marinade concocted with bitter oranges or lime. Thanks to the marinade’s significant acid content, meat that bathes in it grows tender over time.
This recipe is inspired by Cuban-style mojo."
Would be good if some folks would read the introduction. They never claimed this was a Cuban mojo sauce. It's inspired by Cuban style mojo, but it also has other elements in there. Cuban mojo has citrus and garlic, but not all mojo.
Would be good if some folks would read the introduction. They never claimed this was a Cuban mojo sauce. It's inspired by Cuban style mojo, but it also has other elements in there. Cuban mojo has citrus and garlic, but not all mojo
Ok...but the way I got to this recipe was through a recipe for a Cuban sandwich. Therefore, I foolishly assumed the pork would be prepared in a way that would make it taste like the pork I would find on a Cuban sandwich.
Anyone have any thoughts to offer on smoking the whole pork butt after the marinade process rather than sous vide? Any wood suggestions to pair well with the mojo flavors? I dig on oak, hickory, and mesquite most often, though would not go with mesquite on this recipe first go around.
From the headline to that sandwich recipe:
"So we would never dream of trolling South Florida by claiming we have come up with a technique for making the best Cuban sandwich, or even an authentic one."
It's a riff.
Did you read any If the supplemental introduction to the Cuban sandwich? Read the excerpt that @Matthew Snyder shared. You've been on this site long enough that i would have thought that you would have seen enough of theiir recipes to know that rarely so they do anything traditional or authentic. If you're looking for old time classical recipes that a few generations ago would accepted as authentic, you're really on the wrong website.
@Tom Champion What ingredient didn't convert over for you? I ask only because there isn't an ingredient with 450g measurement. It just changes it to pounds and ounces. Most scales have the option to switch from ounces to grams.
Orange wood would go well with the mojo marinade.
Provided that you're cooking it straight away it should be fine since something like 90-95% of the bromelain will denature after an hour at 50C (I'd definiely recommend it you're planning on eating a lot of fresh pineapple without wanting it to eat your face!). But yeah, completely agree with you if you're planning on marinading it first.
Great idea, Brian! Chet, we have a Wood Selection Guide in our Barbecue class you might want to check out. https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/wood-selection-guide
This is a great point, thanks for mentioning John. CJ, we have a detailed sous vide packaging guide that might be helpful as well. https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-packaging
"things are gonna happen in the water bath..."
I'm honestly curious, could you elaborate on the risk or effect? I was thinking of adapting this technique but for more of a "cochinita pibil" style. I imagined I would cut back on the ratio of citrus but not remove it since the tenderness would be achieved via the cooking sous-vide, yet the citrus is important for the flavor.
2 Questions:
1. How much meat to marinade should I use? I bought a 5lb boneless shoulder (butt). I'm thinking I should double the recipe, based on the description of a 3lb in the steps.
2. Just to be sure, if I want to save some for another day, i leave it bagged in the marinade that it cooked in, ice it down to drop the temperature quickly, and toss in the fridge/freezer?
Hello, i tried the recipe this week and the meet cooked at 60C/8hrs turned out pretty cooked through, lost mainly all the juices. I vacuumed the pieces separately with the marinade... then rehetead in vacuum till 50C then grilled them 1 minute each side. What could have gone wrong? thx
Assuming that you are using lump charcoal and not briquettes, you could skip adding smoking wood entirely. The lump fuel will add a mild smoky flavor all on its own. If you want a heavier smoke I would try oak, cherry, or apple.
With the amount of juice liberated from the meat during cooking, I was not convinced that the lengthy citrus marinade would be a problem. The acid will get diluted quickly.
Since all these ingredients are cheap I decided to experiment and see what would happen.
I started with the recipe provided, but made some changes to try for a traditional Cuban roast pork.
- Eliminated ginger, jalapeno, pineapple
- Substituted for pineapple 115 g lemon juice and 115 g orange juice (I talked to a Cuban chef once and that is how he makes a sour orange substitute)
- I had pork shoulder "country ribs" on hand so I just used those odd-shaped slabs instead of slicing as directed in the recipe. I used about 2.5 lbs so I sloshed in about 2/3 of the total marinade volume.
I sealed everything up and put it in the SV overnight at 80C as directed. Then I overslept so it cooked for 9.5 hours instead of 8.
I crash-cooled everything, gave the meat a quick sear on the grill, reduced the bag juices by about half... And the result was Cuban roast pork about as good as I have had in a restaurant. And man, was that reduced mojo sauce good! Like, food truck good.
I did not detect any texture problems with the meat from cooking in that citrus marinade for 9.5 hours. If you used enough citrus I am sure you could over-do it, but these proportions seem safe and tasty.
Next time, I will pre-searing the meat to eliminate the crash cooling step.
What exactly are you asking here?
pimento wood would be good too...often used in the carribean for jerk dishes
Just made this and loved it. I blended the marinade smooth, it emulsified beautifully. I dumped it out of the bag, simmered it for a few minutes and used it for a sauce on the sandwich. It might not be a real Cuban, but it was REALLY tasty!
Hi Rozina, please note that in this post that they state the following.
"We cook this pork at 176 °F / 80 °C for eight hours, and the result is very tender, not unlike a braise. If you want firmer, more steaklike pork, cook at 140 °F / 60 °C for eight hours instead."
So trying to read into what you are saying, you are disappointed that the meat didn't turn out tender and juicy, but in order to achieve that you would have to cook at 80 °C for eight hours, instead of 60 °C, and the meat will come out more juicy and tender like a braise, as they state.
Hope you try again and let us know what your trial and error finds. I haven't made this yet but am very excited to!
Have a great weekend!
It's very difficult to find pork where I live and I KNOW IT JUST WONT BE THE SAME! I'm distraught. But after going through this and watching that movie Chef, I have to do SOMETHING. How can I switch this to lamb or chicken? (sorry but like really)
brian with his cape on thru this whole comment section
How much pork shoulder for this at x1??
Where do you live?
High heated grills? Check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB1x0O-bhrw
Especially the chimney method is so simple and so obvious ...
im amazed by your situation. really. where do you live that you cant find pork?
wondering if cooking the mojo pork for more than 8 hours at 80 C will make it more tender (a la pulled pork)? thoughts?
After I cooked the meat (after almost 24 hours marinating first), it came out to the edge of being too salty, at least for my tastes. I used 1% salt to pork weight as per the instructions, and want to know if I can do anything to reduce the saltiness. I have since sliced and repackaged the meat with a little leftover marinade in each bag (a fraction of the total remaining marinade), and was wondering what steps I should take? In the future, I think if a meat dish recipe calls for 1% salt, I'll cut it in half at least to prevent this from happening again.
How big of a pork shoulder does this recipe make enough marinade for? It doesn't specify the weight of the pork. I have a 9lb shoulder, and am not sure if I need to double the marinade.
I want to do a wholepork shoulder but not cut it into chops. Can I follow the above, in terms of brining and leaving the pork in the brine, but use the 24 hrs at 60C that Chef Steps uses in the Smoker-less Pork Shoulder recipe?
I made this last weekend, followed the recipe. I let it marinate overnight (one pork steak, about 1.75" thick), then cooked it for about 9 hours followed by a quick grill to get a little char on the outside. It was really good, but surprisingly not much flavor from the Mojo marinade. Jalepeno, garlic, pineapple, toasted cumin...and it was a little bland. Super tender, juicy, very good just surprisingly not as flavor-packed as I'd have expected.
My guess - Isreal or a majority Muslim country. Get real, lots of people can't eat pork
Did you try this?
@Susan Petty What exactly is your problem? I Alfred a simple question. Yes, your right, large Jewish and Muslim communities or predominant countries woulda limit access to pork, however, rarely is it completely inaccessible. I'm not sure why you're telling me plenty of people don't eat pork. I'm aware of that. That has nothing to do with the original post or to my response. What is your point?
I want to make this 1/2 or 2/3 into a "decadent pork belly" cook. Which is @ 158˚. Can I go 10 hours w/pork @ 158˚ instead of 8 @ 176˚? Yes I want the cuban style tender result vs the firmer steak result. Thanks
It sounds like you salted it whole rather than slicing it and then seasoning it. Salt doesn't penetrate fat so any seasoning you put on the fatty part just hung out there rather than seasoning any meat under the fat causing fatty pieces to be over seasoned and the meat under the fat to be over seasoned.
Chicken thighs would probably work , too.
I noticed there no ham in this Cuban recipe?
They are cooking the pork, figure out your "own authentic sandwich" ingredients. Seriously? You know CS is featuring their cook feature. Don't be like that.
@Aarohi, I'm going to try this with chicken thighs to see how it goes. I don't eat pork and since there is enough confirmation elsewhere here that this is already non-traditional I'm going to forge further off the beaten path. I am curious to know if you tried either Lamb or Chicken yourself and what your results where. Thank you.
