Japanese pork pot roast 煮豚

Although I have posted Japanese (Chinese) pork pot roast previously, this one turned out particularly well. One major reason is the cut of pork. Generally pork roasts that are available in the grocery store are loins which would become dry if cooked by this method; they are better grilled on the Weber. I occasionally can get shoulder or butt. This cut has more layers of fat between the meat. Some of these are bone-in, and not suited for pot roast so we frequently barbecue these cuts in our Weber grill. Sometimes, however, the fat is too much and I end up having to remove large sections of it from the meat after the roast is cooked. More recently different types of pork roast started appearing in our grocery store. This roast was sold as "pork roast" with no specific cut identified. I am guessing this is either shoulder or butt. It was boneless so I made it into a pot roast. It came out very succulent and good. Since I made this in the morning, I decided to serve it as a lunch. I served it with French-cut green beans, green asparagus, tomatoes and my potato salad.

With this method of cooking the layers of fat between the meat are mostly rendered out but the pieces are still very moist and tender.

I also added a skinned and sliced Campari tomato as well as blanched broccoli. I dressed the veggies with sesame mayonnaise (sesame paste, mayo and soy sauce).

The recipe for the pork is the same one I used before.

Ingredients:
Pork roast, trussed (it came trussed in a plastic net but I removed and re-trussed it with a butcher's twine).
Marinade: (soy sauce, mirin and sake in 2:1:1 ratio) enough to cover 1/3 of the pork roast.
Star anise (2), whole black pepper corns (6-8), garlic, peeled and crushed (3-4), ginger sliced (3-4 sliced), scallion, bruised using the back of the knife (2-3 stalks).

Directions:
1. Place the roast in the pot with the marinade and spices.  The roast should snugly fit in the pot.
2. Put on the lid and let it marinate at room temperature, turning every 10-20 minutes for 1-2 hours.
3. Add water so that a bit more than half of the roast is submerged.
4. Place the pot on medium flame and cover loosely with the aluminum foil and put on the lid.
5. When the simmering liquid starts boiling, turn down the flame to simmer and cook for 2-3 hours, turning once or twice.
6. Let it cool down in the marinade.
7. Remove the roast and set it aside. With the lid off, reduce the marinade in half. Remove the  rendered fat floating on the surface of the liquid using a fat separator.
8. Place the roast in a Ziploc bag and pour in the reduced and defatted marinade.

This was a perfect lunch for a weekend. I may have to make some ramen noodles to fully take advantage of this nice pork pot roast.