Another repeat – Pork Shoulder with Chipotle-Orange BBQ Sauce

In the realm of “repeating delicious recipes”, yesterday, as part of our hog share, Bill & I repeated the pork shoulder in chipotle-orange bbq sauce. I’d actually been looking forward to making this again, ever since I gave away all the leftovers & so thoroughly disappointed Mr. Bill.

Too bad it didn’t come out nearly as well this time. Bill’s willing to eat the leftovers, but he’s not as thrilled.

So, what changed?

There were two major things, that I can see. First, the sauce was far more fluid this time than last time. We both agreed it was nearly a glaze last time, and this time it was a fairly thin sauce. There was a lot more of it – it didn’t reduce as thoroughly. It didn’t have that tacky, sticky, HOT wonderful flavor as last time. It was thin, and almost dull.

Second, the fat in the meat didn’t render out nearly as much this time as it did last time. I don’t know if our hog shoulder was just plain fattier than the hog shoulder I got from Whole Foods, or if I cooked that one longer, or what. I will say that while this shoulder seemed to be “falling apart” after 5.5 h in the oven, I suspect it would have been better had I let it cook for another hour. Or two. Or three. Unfortunately, 5.5 h in the oven had us eating the shoulder at 8:00 pm, and that was quite late enough for dinner, thank you.

I’m not sure what was different. My current guess, from looking at the old post, is that I did not cover the roast (as directed) last time. That would, at least, explain the “glaze” vs “sauce” difference. I don’t think, though, that it would explain the level of fat left in the meat.

Unfortunately, a shoulder roast isn’t really a reasonable cut for two people. I’d intended to make this Wednesday, when a friend of ours was scheduled to come for dinner. However, she canceled and the roast wasn’t thawed yet. So I figured, “What the heck? I’ll make it for two people anyway.”

Now it’s time to figure out how to fix it in leftovers. This is going to be tricky, because Bill really doesn’t enjoy a lot of fat in his meat. I know one solution is going to be to skim off the rendered fat in the sauce, then boil it down into more of a glaze. I think after that, I will roast a couple of individual slices for him, low heat, in the toaster oven, to see how that goes. It won’t render out a lot, but maybe it will help as how I reheat. As you can imagine, I’m not sure. I’m taking suggestions, if you have any.

If nothing works, I’m going to be eating a LOT of pork shoulder all by myself. Which is no great tragedy, but I eat small portions, so it’s going to take a long time. Good thing I’m planning to have some for lunch and dinner today…



fn1. I’ve made more recipes. The stuff on the side. A few other recipes I made, just to make them. But, like the tree in the woods, do they count if they aren’t on record somehow? Does just listing them, such as that list on the right, count? I haven’t figured it out yet.