Read & Print Recipe from www.greatgrandmother.org

 

New England Pork Roast with Wild Mushrooms, Cranberries, and Chestnuts

 

As a chef, I will be the first to admit that my food tastes much better if the singular ingredients are of the highest quality: seasonal, fresh, as organic as possible, and as local as possible. In fact, I can screw up royally in the kitchen and still come out with good-tasting stuff if the ingredients are top-notch.

So, when I prepare this dish, I get fresh organic cranberries from my friends in Wareham, Massachusetts; a big pork butt (the shoulder, with lots of fat) from my buddy Roger's pigs (well, dead pigs), and I roast my own chestnuts like my father used to. You know, soak them in water for a couple minutes to soften the skin, then cross cut the skins on top to allow for moisture to escape, and then bake them for 15 minutes on 400 to roast up nicely. Watch them, though, so that they do not get dried out, or else the chestnuts will have the texture of a rock.

Use some good quality local or imported exotic and/or wild shrooms. It's OK to add some white button mushrooms into the mix, but what I'm down with are portabellas, crimini, chanterelles, hedgehogs, and those smoky black trumpets. If they are dried--which I prefer--then soak them in hot water and preserve the mushroom liquor to add to the final dish. That's one of the best parts, dude.

Roast your pork slow and low. To do this, salt and pepper the roast and rub it in with your hands. Then, add some rubbed sage and cumin with a little olive oil and do the same--massage the piggy.

Place it in a big roasting vessel--like a coated cast iron roaster--along with sliced onions, a couple cups of chicken stock, and a half bottle of good red wine. Don't skimp on the red wine, please. Like Julia used to say, if you won't drink it, then don't use it in your cooking. (I think Julia said that. If she didn't, then she should have!)

Place it into a hot, hot, hot oven. Crank it up to 500 degree F. Uncovered. High heat. Twenty minutes. Kills the bad stuff on the pork and starts to get the meat hot.

Then, place a tight-fitting lid on it and reduce the heat to 325 degree F. for a couple hours, or until you can poke at it with a fork and the meat comes apart.

At that point, add your whole bag of cranberries, the mushrooms, and the chestnuts, which you have cut into quarters. Bake for another 25 minutes until everything is combined nicely.

Remove from the oven and let sit, covered, for at least 20 minutes. Serve over brown rice.