Monday · cooks for Mon, Tue
Pernil with Arroz con Gandules
pork shoulder, garlic, oregano, pigeon peas, stewed eggplant
A garlic and oregano paste driven deep into a pork shoulder and cooked until the meat gives up. The rice is cooked in the pernil's own skimmed fat, which is not optional so much as the entire point, and the stewed eggplant alongside keeps the plate from being all pork and starch.
Method
11 steps- Score the pork skin in a crosshatch, cutting through the skin and fat but not into the meat. Then stab a dozen deep slits into the meat itself, 2 in deep, all over.
- Mash the garlic, oregano, adobo, sazon, pepper, oil, vinegar, lime, sofrito, and salt into a rough paste. Force it into every slit with your fingers, then rub what is left over the whole surface, skin included. Let it sit 30 minutes at room temperature while you do everything else.
- Cut the shoulder into two pieces so it fits. Into the Instant Pot with 1 cup water, skin side up, Pressure Cook High 75 minutes. Natural release 20 minutes. If you have the afternoon instead, roast it at 300F uncovered with a cup of water until a fork twists freely, about 6 hours, then 450F for the last 20 minutes and skip the air fryer.
- Lift the pork onto a board. Pour the cooking liquid into a fat separator, because you want the fat for the rice and the liquid for cooking it.
- Cut the skin off in large sheets, pat it bone dry, salt it well, and air fry at 400F for 12 to 15 minutes until blistered and hard. Break it into shards.
- Pull the meat into large chunks with two forks and set aside 1 lb right now, before anyone sees it, for Wednesday's pastelon.
- Arroz con gandules: heat 3 tbsp of the skimmed pernil fat in a heavy pot over medium. Add the sofrito and fry it 5 minutes until it darkens and the raw onion smell goes. Sazon and alcaparrado, 1 minute. Gandules and tomato sauce, 2 minutes.
- Add the rice and stir until every grain is coated and glossy, 2 minutes. Add the liquid, bay leaves, and salt to taste. The liquid should taste slightly too salty. Bring to a hard boil, then stop stirring.
- Boil uncovered until the liquid drops to the level of the rice and craters appear on the surface, about 8 minutes. Turn the heat to low, cover tightly, 20 minutes. Off heat 10 minutes, still covered, then fluff from the bottom up.
- Berenjena guisada, in cast iron while the rice steams: oil over medium-high, sofrito 3 minutes, then the eggplant. Toss to coat and cook 6 minutes until it starts to collapse. Add the tomato sauce, sazon, alcaparrado, water, and salt. Cover, drop to low, 15 minutes, then uncover and cook 5 more to thicken.
- Build Tuesday's container before you plate dinner. Serve the pernil with shards of cuerito on top, rice alongside, eggplant next to it, and pique on the table.
Why It Works
- Deep slits, not a surface rub. Salt moves through meat at roughly half an inch a day, and a seven-pound shoulder is far too thick for seasoning to migrate inward in an afternoon. Physically packing the paste into the interior is the only way the center of the roast tastes like anything, and the same is true of any large cut.
- The rice stops being stirred once the liquid is in. Stirring releases surface starch and turns the grains creamy, which is right for risotto and wrong here. Left alone, the grains stay separate and the bottom layer forms pegao, the crisp golden crust that is the best part of the pot.
- Season the liquid, not the rice. Rice absorbs seasoning along with water, so the finished dish always tastes milder than the pot did. If the cooking liquid tastes correct, the rice will taste flat.
- Eggplant gets high heat before any liquid. It is a sponge, and hitting it hot first collapses the cell structure and browns it. Start it in liquid instead and it stays spongy and absorbs oil endlessly.
- Cook the rice in the pernil fat. Rendered pork fat carries the fat-soluble aromatics out of the garlic and oregano paste. This is what makes the two dishes taste like they belong to each other rather than sitting next to each other.
Day Two
Pork in one container with a few spoons of its cooking liquid, rice in another, eggplant in a third. Four days. The cuerito stays out at room temperature, uncovered, because refrigerating it turns it to leather. Before you sit down Monday, fill one wide shallow container for Tuesday: rice on one side, a generous pile of pernil on the other with two spoonfuls of cooking liquid over the meat, eggplant filling the gap. Put two shards of cuerito in a small bag on the counter rather than in the container.
Pernil is best in a hot cast iron pan for 4 minutes, letting the edges catch and crisp. That is the pernil frito move and it is arguably better than the first night. Rice takes a splash of water, covered, low heat for 8 minutes, or the microwave under a damp paper towel. Eggplant is forgiving and reheats any way you like. The prebuilt Tuesday container goes in the microwave covered, 3 minutes, stir, 1 minute more, with the cuerito dropped on top after.
Garnacha, 20 minutes in the fridge
Pernil is fatty, garlicky, and oregano-heavy, and a juicy low-tannin Spanish red cuts it without competing. A cold Medalla or any light lager is the honest local answer and easier to find.