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Pork, Shoulder Of, Marinaded

A pork shoulder marinated in vinegar, salt, peppercorns, lemon, onions, juniper berries, cloves, and bay leaf for five days before roasting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,150 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pork, Shoulder Of, Marinaded

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Place the shoulder of pork in a deep earthen pan and pour the vinegar over the pork.

  2. Add the salt, bruised peppercorns, lemon, sliced onions, juniper berries, cloves, and bay leaf.

  3. Let the pork marinate in this mixture for 5 days, turning and rubbing it daily.

  4. After 5 days, remove the pork, drain it, and cover it with oiled paper.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the pork at a distance from a clear fire, basting liberally with the strained marinade.

  2. For the sauce, mix ½ cup of the marinade with ½ cup of cold water, add ½ teaspoon of brown thickening, and season with pepper and salt if needed.

  3. Serve the sauce in a tureen.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pork shoulder
Forms the main meat that the marinade softens and the roast cooks through.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade helps tenderise the surface of the meat over the long soak.
Onions
Sweetness and aroma that flavour the marinade and carry into the sauce.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat deeply and helps draw flavour into the marinated surface.

The step that matters

Marinating for 5 days with daily turning. The acid and salt must reach every part of the meat over the long soak. Turning and rubbing daily keeps the marinade in contact with all surfaces, so flavour and tenderness are even.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, vinegar, onion, clove):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, vinegar, onion, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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