Pork Shoulder Blade: How to cook?

[jpinmaryland]

These were on special so I got one. It must weight about 6 or 7 lbs and I think there is a bone in the middle. IT is shaped like a small ham. So how do you prepare these? My wife suggests doing it like pot roast but actually Ive never done pot roast either. I like pork; my favorite is doing ribs in chinese 5 spice w/ an orange sauce using a crock pot and braising them for a long while. I dont think I can do this shoulder like that for one thing its too big. So what do you all think?

Thanks.

[Ask-A-Butcher]

The Pork Blade Shoulder, aka Boston Butt is ideal for BBQ'ed Pork Sandwiches. However, that is a step or two beyond 'pot roast'.

Season the roast with salt, pepper and garlic (or your favorite BBQ rub), place it into the crock pot with some apple juice and water. Add a drop or two of Liquid Smoke, if desired. Cook it all day until it is fork tender and literally falling apart. Shred the pork and add some of the juices from the crock pot to keep it moist. You can now add some bbq sauce and mix it in or just make a sandwich (cheap old burger buns are best) and add the sauce on top.

An alternative is to place the pork roast into a baking dish with the apple juice and water, cover with foil and bake at 250° for about 5 hours, or until the internal temp of the meat reaches 195-200°. Follow the above for making "Pulled Pork".

You can use any other liquid, other than apple juice. Beer for example, but I think the apple juice is the most diverse without adding it's own flavor.

Of course the traditional way of making "Pulled Pork" is to slowly smoke it for about 10 hours in the grill.

[jpinmaryland]

wow, nice! Do I cut it or take it apart at any point in the crock pot process? or just put in whole and leave it that way until done?

[Ask-A-Butcher]

Originally Posted by jpinmaryland

wow, nice! Do I cut it or take it apart at any point in the crock pot process? or just put in whole and leave it that way until done?

You can cut it in half, if you'd like and it would cook better to. Just follow the instructions at this link...pictures #2 and #3.
BBQ Butcher - Boneless Country Ribs, making your own

[jpinmaryland]

Yeah, that was great. I cooked it at 275 for about 5 hours. I used the apple juice and to that I added a bay leaf and some garlic, also put some soy sauce on the meat about halfway through just cause I like soy sauce on stuff like that. I also cut it in half about half way through to help the cooking which I am sure it did since the inside was quite rare at that pt. I dont if any of the ingredients made much of a difference to the overal product which was great throughout.

The safeway guys had already cut out that "eye" whatever that is. There seems to be only a smallish bone at the one end. It mostly meat and quite good.

Thanks for the tips.

[Yonsen]

if in small batches, i use the Bone from the butt to make a small amount of pork stock in which helps make a good accompanying sauce. I choose bone-in because its an overall 2-for-1 deal.

[GrillingFool]

Did one today. This works really well too.

Season the roast with any meat rub you like... One with a good amount of brown
sugar is nice.
Let the roast sit for a few hours.

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Put the roast into a baking dish or roasting pan.
Cook in oven for about 30 minutes.
Remove the roast, pour in 1 beer (no it will not taste like beer, but you can use
stock, wine/water, water... but beer is best), sprinkle roast with some chopped
garlic and onions if you wish and cover.
Reduce heat in oven to 225 degrees, put roast back in and let it cook for 3-5 hours,
or until interior temperature is 200 degrees.

It will be falling apart and exceptionally tasty.

[DogBitez]

After a lot of trial and error, this is how I always cook a pork shoulder blade roast now: stuff that roast into your crockpot (I usually have a 5-6 lb roast), turn the pot on high, dump about 1-1/2 cups of jarred salsa verde over the top, add a dozen chopped fresh garlic cloves, and then entertain yourself for the next five hours while the pork cooks. Once it's fork tender, I remove the meat and chunk it up (reserve the broth). I lay the meat out on a broiler pan and pop it under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp up the edges (gives it a nice carnitas texture). Serve the pork with the incredible salsa verde/pork juice broth over rice and/or with flour tortillas.