Ah….another slow roast day!
A couple weeks ago, I watched Chef again. I love the scene where they just finished cleaning up the food truck and Martin is making his Mojo for the pork shoulder. Just looking at that makes my mouth water. I decided to try the recipe for myself. For version 1.0, I used pork tenderloin instead of pork shoulder, just to speed up the cooking time. Grilled on indirect heat, the pork took about 20 minutes to cook and had that great cilantro-orange-lime flavor. The meat was incredibly juicy. I decided to make the Mojo again, but this time using pork shoulder, which is what the recipe originally called for.
Roy Choi was a consultant for the movie. The Chef movie recipes are available on-line, but I included a link for the Mojo Marinated Pork Shoulder here.
For the Mojo…
- 1 bunch cilantro
- Zest of 1 orange
- ¾ cup freshly squeezed orange juice (about 3 medium oranges)**
- ½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice (about 6 limes)
- ¾ cup olive oil
- 8 garlic cloves (per the recipe, but I used a full head of garlic)
- ¼ cup fresh mint leaves
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon dried cumin
- 1 tablespoon black pepper
- Kosher salt (to taste)
TIP: Use Cara Cara oranges if you can find them. They are much sweeter than traditional naval oranges and have a beautiful red flesh.
I put all of the ingredients in a blender and pureed everything until it was smooth. You can definitely chop up all of the ingredients if you would like, but the blender is much easier. Divide the Mojo, reserving at least a ½ cup to use as a sauce.
For the Pork Shoulder…
- 4-5 pounds pork shoulder (I used bone-in, but boneless works too)
- Kosher salt
Season the pork with a generous amount of salt. Place the pork in a very large, resealable bag (if you have one) or into a glass dish. Pour the Mojo into the bag/dish and rub the Mojo into the pork. Let the pork sit in the Mojo marinade overnight.
Cooking the Pork…
I used the Green Egg again with the plate installed for indirect grilling (aka the “Conveggtor” on the Green Egg site). The pork cooked at a steady temperature of 225 degrees for almost 4 hours until it reached an internal temperature of 140 degrees. I took the pork off the Egg, removed the plate and brought the Egg’s temperature up to 500 degrees. I seared off the pork for about 4 minutes on each side, then let the pork sit 10 minutes before cutting into thin slices. When I took the pork off the grill after searing it, the temperature was 145 degrees.
Note that the actual recipe calls for the internal pork temperature to be 160 degrees. If you do google pork temperatures, there are recipes that say to cook the pork until the internal temperature is 195 degrees. The FDA endorses the 145 internal temperature and I have been cooking most of my pork this way. You can’t really over cook pork shoulder; the longer you cook it, the more tender it gets.
Accoutrements…
I served this with cilantro lime rice (which I made in the rice cooker) and a bottle of Ghost Pines Cabernet for dinner.
Buen Provecho!
