Recipe courtesy of Erika Nakamura and Jocelyn Guest

Mustardy Herby Pork Butt

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  • Level: Intermediate
  • Total: 3 hr 45 min (plus refrigeration and resting times)
  • Active: 45 min
  • Yield: 4 to 5 servings
Of all the parts of all the animals, pork butt is my favorite because it's a blank canvas ready to be infused with any number of flavors. You can braise it, smoke it, roast it, grind it, sous vide it - the possibilities are endless! What I love about this recipe is that I can season it the night before, set the multi-cookier the next morning and when I come home to a hungry toddler, all I have to do is turn on the oven, crisp it up and I have a home cooked meal that tastes like hours of work in 20 minutes. The other part I love about this recipe is I always have an open container of mustard, herbs on death's doorstep and some stock and half-drunk wine (I can never finish a bottle!) kicking around in my fridge so it never requires prior planning. Don't have wine or stock? Use water! No marjoram or sage? Literally use what you have. This should be easy.

Ingredients

Directions

  1. The night before you're going to cook, unwrap the pork butt and pat it dry. Season it liberally all over with salt and leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight.
  2. The next day, mix the mustard, herbs and garlic in a small bowl. Slather the mixture all over the pork butt (really get in there). Let it sit for an hour or so on the counter. 
  3. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. 
  4. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pot. Sear the butt 5 minutes on each side to brown. Remove the pork from the pot to a sheet tray. Pour in 1/4 cup of the wine and scrape up all the brown bits as the wine starts to boil. Kill the heat. 
  5. Put the pork back in the pot. Add the chicken stock and the remaining 2 cups wine. (These are the liquids I use but, TBH, you can roll with what you have. Water is ok too!) Put into the oven and cook for 3 hours, or until the roast internal temp is 175 degrees F (start checking it around 2 hours). If using a multi-cooker, put the pork along with all the pan drippings, wine and chicken stock into the pot. Set the pot to high pressure/natural release for 50 minutes. 
  6. Turn the oven temp to 450 degrees F or turn on the broiler. When the pork temps at 175, remove it from the pot and onto a sheet tray with a rack. Pop the pork in the oven or under the broiler to crisp it up. While the pork is crisping, put the pot with all the cooking liquid over high heat and reduce it by half. 
  7. When the pork is GBD, remove it from the oven and let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the string and slice into finger-width pieces against the grain. Top with the reduced sauce and serve with hunks of crusty bread and a big ass salad.