bottled mojo

Cuban pork is very good. Fortunately, I have a number of friends in the Tampa Bay area with sour orange trees in their backyard. So I can get my sour orange juice, which is the base of the mojo, pretty much any time I like. If you need the recipe of cooking the Cuban pork from scratch, let me know and I will post it for you.

quote:

Originally posted by RibDog:...If you need the recipe of cooking the Cuban pork from scratch, let me know and I will post it for you.

Sure, I won't mind peaking at that. No sour oranges here - but I see lots of reference to mixing lemon/lime to orange to make faux sour orange. thx

Anthony’s Cuban Pork

Serves: 10 with leftovers

1 pork butt, 6-8 lbs.
Garlic cloves, large jar at Publix
1 diced Spanish onion, large
3 T oregano
1 t cumin
½ c. Olive oil
3 T salt
2 t ground pepper
1 gal sour orange juice
Coarse salt
Black pepper


In a food processor, chop all the garlic into small pieces. Add the diced onion and process on pulse until the onion is just incorporated with the garlic. Add the oregano, cumin, salt, and pepper to the processor. Pulse the blender while adding olive oil. Add just enough olive oil to form a paste. Add ¼ to ½ cup of sour orange juice to the mix also. Do this three days before you plan on eating the pork. Take half of the paste and put aside while taking the other half and mixing it with the sour orange juice. Mix the paste well with the juice. Place mojo and paste in refrigerator.

Two day before eating, trim the butt and use about the reserved paste to season the pork. Poke some holes into the butt with a boning knife and push the paste down into the holes. Season the butt generously with coarse salt and black pepper. Place pork in a large Ziploc bag and pour half of the mojo over the butt. Squeeze the air out of the bag and close. Place in a pan and place refrigerator. Every few hours, or when you remember to, turn the bag over so as to move the mojo around on the butt. Marinade the pork for at least 12 hours; more is better.

When you are ready to cook the pork, take the pork out of the refrigerator. Take the butt and the marinade out of the bag and place in a stainless steel pan. This is very important that it must be stainless steel as the marinade will attack aluminum pans.

Let the butt and marinade sit in the pan on the counter for 1-2 hours. While the pork is sitting, start your smoker to a temp of 160°F. When the butt is finished sitting and the smoker is ready, take the butt from the pan and place it in the smoker. Leave it in the smoker at 160°F for 3 hours. Raise the temp to 235°F and cook butt until the internal temp of the butt comes up to 150°F. After this time, place the butt back in the roasting pan with the marinade leftover from the bag in which it was marinated. Cover the pan with foil and place back in the smoker. Raise the smoker temp to 275°F.

Note: If you do not want to use the smoker for the remainder of the cook, you can use your oven instead at 275°F.

Every two hours, baste the pork with the marinade using a bulb baster or a mop. Add more fresh marinade to the pan as it is needed. You do not want the pan to go dry as this will overcook the drippings.

Start cooking the pork early as the total cooking process will take 12-15 hours. The pork will get very dark during the cooking process but this is normal.

Cook the pork until the internal temperature is 180°F if you wish to serve it sliced or 195°F if you wish to pull it. I prefer to cook 195°F myself. More of the fat will be rendered out at this level. Use a remote thermometer to monitor this. Make sure the probe is in the center of the pork and not touching the bone.

When done, remove from the oven, uncover, and let sit for about ½ hour before slicing or pulling. Serve with some of the pan drippings which have been defatted.


Recipe courtesy of Anthony Lopez

A word of warning. Do not use an aluminum pan to hold the pork in the smoker. Use either a stainless steel pan or a glass dish. The acid in the mojo will eat through the aluminum pan.

And please excuse the details in the recipe as this was written for a cooking class that I gave.

I'll rename this and move it to recipes (eventually)

quote:

Originally posted by RibDog:...Garlic cloves, large jar at Publix...

I have never bought garlic in jar. Do you have a guess as to the oz of this large jar.

Thanks for sharing recipe and the detail. Looks great - can't wait to try it.

Sorry about that. It is a 1 lb. jar of cleaned garlic cloves and is found in the produce section near the bagged salads in the store I go to. Since you are using so much, it just helps to not have to clean all that garlic.

Keep in mind that you will not need to all that garlic if you are using a premade mojo. You would only need half of the paste in that case.

Sam's sells it in the produce cooler.

John knows of where he speaks.

Anthony is a cuban chef,from a Cuban family restaurant in Cuba.

He puts on full Cuban traditional holiday meals,and he and John teach this to a pretty sophisticated group of diners/cooks in a Food TV type setting.

Most of the students are from the Tampa Bay area,which is about equal to Miami as being "little Havana".

They give rave reviews.

The mix is approximated by an equal blend of limes and lemons ,to get the acid /taste level of the Seville oranges.

Like RedOak mentioned,the taste is as much different,as fresh picked lemons are to the bottled Real lemon.