Porkgasm!

Dr.Jass

Dr.Jass

Pastor of Muppets
Best recipe of which I'm aware for porketta roast... and if you've not had porketta, let me know where you live so I can avoid hell.

First off, ask around and find the best butcher shop in your area that does Italian stuff. If someone has a recommendation for porketta, all the better. If it's not sporting a net to hold it together, move on. It needs a net and must be covered in spices from all angles, and two pounds is about the minimum size. I did this last night with a four-pounder, and five people vaporized it in under an hour. :D



Break out the slow cooker, and grab these ingredients:
  • A porketta roast (duh).
  • 1 can cream of chicken soup (do not manually masturbate the chicken; it's not the same--Campbell's has it figured out)
  • 1 can of chicken broth
  • A bunch of good, home-baked rolls from the local bakery.
Here's how I do it:

Put about 1/4 can of cream of chicken soup in the bottom of the slow cooker. Pour in just enough chicken broth to cover about about 1/4" of the bottom of the slow cooker. Fire it up on high long enough to dissolve the cream of chicken soup. Once that's dissolved, set the roast in the slow cooker, pour in the remains of the can of chicken broth and switch the slow cooker to low. Now, take the other 3/4 can of cream of chicken soup and spoon it onto the top of the roast, spreading it evenly around every surface not sunken in broth.

Let it sit on low for about 8 hours, then cut off and remove the net and break it up with a fork until it's sandwich-style meat. Any clumps of spice stuck to the net should be forked out, broken up, and put back into the mix. Stir it well to dissolve them into the solution.

Pour off the excess liquid, approximately half, but it'll look like the meat's no longer a soup.

Turn the cooker to "warm", or the lowest setting, for a couple more hours.

Slice the buns, and serve warm. Experience Porkgasm.

I made this for my crew today, and 3 out of 5 called it the "best porketta" (or pork, period, in 2 cases) they'd ever had. I did better a couple of weeks ago because I used a better roast; time and travel constraints kept me from getting one from my normal supplier, so I'm one of the 2 dissenters (I ate the whole previous 4lb roast myself over a weekend), and my driver is not given to any kind of extremes... but she added she would use my recipe from now on. :D

Variation: add a slice of onion, thickness dependent on your tolerance of onion, and some good Italian red sauce. Around these parts, this variance (though not on the above recipe) is known as a Santini Special... and, as a side note, if your red sauce is available nationally, it's garbage. Either make your own, or find a moustachioed old Italian woman that sells it out of her basement like drugs. Good stuff!

If I can find my recipe for red sauce, I'll post it.
 
I guess I gotta get a pork shoulder out of the freezer and make my pulled pork recipe.
And this time I'll write it down.

Sounds good Doc.

I learned how to make red sauce (no we don't call it gravy contrary to what Goodfellas would have you believe) from my Sicilian mother-in-law. Nothing beats throwing a couple of racks of ribs on the grill then putting them in the sauce to cook for 4 hours.
 
It ain't red gravy, it ain't red sauce, it's sugo. I learned how to make it from my Sicilian mother.
 
I'd like to see these red sauce recipes. Mine involves fresh tomatoes from the garden in the summer and home canned tomatoes in the winter, lots of fresh garlic, finely chopped onion, fresh mushrooms, ground pork, Italian sausage, and various spices (oregano, basil, sea salt, and bay leaves) and about a quarter of a bottle of sweet red wine (real wine, not that cooking wine crap!) And you must saute the garlic and onion in olive oil first, add the other ingredients, and let simmer several hours.

Damn, now I gotta go make a batch. mmmmm baby

Edit: I just sent my eldest daughter upstairs to start chopping onion and garlic, and make a batch of French bread dough, while I continue to slack off here. I love having a kid who can cook. :D
 
My daughter did great, she made most of it herself, I just had to add the wine and tweak the spices.
 
Our sauce uses Redpack® brand Italian style tomatoes, a lot of garlic, other spices including fresh basil (I love the smell of sautéd fresh basil), ground beef, homemade meatballs, sweet Italian sausage, and sometimes spareribs or country ribs.
Sometimes we throw a teaspoon of sugar in to cut the acid.
I like to grill the sausage outdoors on the barbecue to add a little extra flavor too.
 
Damn Doc that sounds delicious.....:)

So do you scoop the porkgasm onto the buns or how do we eat this masterpiece....please inform the ignorant....;):toot:
 
On buns--hence, "Slice the buns" in the original post--preferably fresh-baked locally which is how I served them last week. That's where the Santini Special variation comes into play... a slice of onion and red sauce added to the porketta on a bun. I will say this: as much as I like a good red sauce and onion, I'm all about the purity of a good porketta, and I'll not sully it with either. One of the ex-girlfriends, though, claims the Santini is the greatest thing since rolled-up toiled paper.

I might add, I live and was raised in a very-Italian town (the "Nortside" is infested with 'em), and I have never, ever heard any kind of Italian sauce referred to as "gravy." Though most of them have passed away at this point, when I was a kid there were a lot of first- and second-generation Italian-American immigrants around. I don't ever remember hearing it called sugo, but then again, around these parts the Italians tried very hard to assimiate themselves and very-rarely used Italian unless they were amongst their own.
 
You know, it never occurred to me when I posted this recipe that some of you have no idea what a porketta roast even is. It seems to be fairly regional, like Blue Moon ice cream (best flavor ever). So, if you can't get it locally and have never been exposed, here's the best way I've found to make it at home. Despite the cayenne peppers, this is not an exceptionally-spicy recipe. If you've never had porketta, it's well worth trying if you like Italian food.

4-pound boneless pork roast
Kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground dill seed
1 tablespoon ground fennel seed
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
10 red cayenne peppers, whole

Optional:
Chicken broth
Cream of chicken soup

Mix all ingredients except the roast, the peppers, and the kosher salt. Lightly salt the roast with the kosher salt, then lay out the cayennes evenly. Apply the mixture to the roast, coating the peppers. If the roast has a net, leave it in place as well as any fat. That's flavor you're thinking of removing!

There are a couple of ways to cook this. You can either do it as a normal roast in the oven for about 1-1/2 hours at 325°, allowing it to cool and serve as a sliced roast or shredded into sandwiches. Roasting it actually makes for pretty good cold sandwiches, which I prefer without garnish except the peppers cooked with it. Make sure the pork's internal temp is about 160° before you consider it done. Use a meat thermometer! Pull the cayennes and set them aside. Cooled, this makes a fantastic cold sandwich.

The other cooking method, better adapted to shredding and making sandwiches served hot, is to put this bad-boy in the crock pot. This is where the broth and soup come into play. Pour about 1" of chicken broth into the slow cooker, and 2 tablespoons of cream of chicken soup. Get the crock pot warm so the two will blend, then set your porketta in there. Apply the rest of the cream of chicken liberally over the top of the roast. Cook it on "low" for 8 hours, and you'll be able to break it up with a fork after you remove the net and set the cayennes aside, then turn the slow cooker to its lowest setting. Pour off the excess liquid (about 3/4 of it). Allow it to simmer for a couple more hours.

Cooked either way, knock all those spices off the net before you toss it. Personally, I like it regardless of cooking method.

If you like hot peppers, the spiced cayennes will be like candy to you. The cooking mellows them quite a bit, but they're still cayennes. You can eat them by themselves, but broken up on porketta sandwiches, they're awesome.

Serving suggestion still apply, though if you roasted it, it can be sliced and served as an entree while still hot.
 
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