What What in the Butt

Karl and I decided to make scramritos  scrambled egg burritos.  I love this name - something my good friend Rachel and Natalie introduced me to :-)

This recipe is made with pork-butt sometimes referred to as a pork shoulder.  A little history on the Butt - back in the "olden days" they used to partition animal parts into larger quantities of meat by zone - so a Pork Butt usually considered of a number of other cuts of meat around the shoulder area of the pig - so you will find it under both titles.  This cut is also the best option if you have a recipe for Green Ham - which is what you call a raw ham - this is used in a prolific Latino recipe on Christmas!

So this one you could even do while you are at work or have things to do that taker a while.  The longer and lower you cook the better it will be.

We made the butt last night - it was about a 4lb butt so not all that big but just perfect for Karl and I and some left-overs.

First I brined it - brining infuses the meat with salt which then enables the protein molecules to obsorbe or bond with water and not let them go.  You can brine for as few as 2 hours for a 4-5lb. butt of even over night.

I brined this butt in:

6 Cups H2O 
6 tsp of chicken bullion
2 Bay Leaf
1 Tbsp Pepper Corns

Dump it together in a contain and refrigerate!  I would not reccoment using a metal or cast iron pan as the salt will pitt the finish.

Once done brining take the butt out but don't rinse it off.   Brining work for most meat - the smaller the cut the less time you need to brine so you can brine thin cut pork chops for a little as 20min.  Or you can brine a turkey over night or up to 24 hours.  The ingredients beyond the salt are totally up to you and add different flavors but are not totally necessary.  BUT  I have one total MUST - please do not use Iodized salt in the blue can - it is so acidic and nasty!  Pick up a box or jar of Kosher Salt or Flake Salt - it's extremely cheep.  In your other cooking you will need to salt and taste and use marginally more as it's volume is larger than Iodized.

MMKKK - Here is the But Recipe:
1 4-5 lb brined butt
6 cups chicken broth -
4 Orange juice - or Orange Pineapple
 I use the bullion for the salt - if you do not you might want to add in salt - don't worry about the brine.
1 med. onion - quartered
6 cloves of garlic - place on the counter and wack it to break it up a bit and let out the essential oils
1 tbsp Dill Seeds
1 tsp Crushed Pepper
1 tsp Brown Sugar (There is a boutique on the north side of Grand avenue just west of Dale that has some really cool stuff like Cinnamon salt (good on sweet potatoes or yams) a dozen variates of salts from black smoked salt to rose hip salt to cardamom salt and pink salt.  Great ideas for gifts of for your own kitchen.  I decided to use my jar of Maple Syrup Sugar but that is not needed.

Combine everything into a baking pan/dish - the idea is that you are going braise the meat in the juice so you want to pick a pan that is just a little bit wider than the meet.  Take some foil and tightly wrap it over the top of the pan and then put the lid on top of that so none of the juicy liquid evaporates.  If you pan doesn't have a lid than just wrap it well with foil.  I have actually made this recipe in our smoker - but you MUST keep the heat down to 250-275 that us key.  Assuming you will be putting into your oven you will set the oven for 250 and put it in - don't worry about the warm-up time just put it in - the extra heat will caramelize the outside of the meat and that's just fine.  You could probably use a crock but only if you know for sure how hot it gets.

Once you have cooked it for 6 hours take it out - do NOT uncover it and let it sit for 30min.  Once that has passed take it out of the pan and put it one counter for another 20 min.  When the heat reduced it will suck the liquid back into the meat so do not cut it!  This is called capillary action and it does make use of the residual heat that is left in the butt once you are done cooking.

You should have a really hard time getting it out of the pot because it will fall apart all over the place!

I like to use it for Scramritos - but it makes anything you can imagine that uses pork - especially delicious pulled pork

When I make scramritos I scramble some eggs (a single fried egg is also good), dice some tomato and onion, maybe some cilantro and then add some hot sauce or salsa if you fear the delicious and life giving heat of spicy food.  Possibly a cure to cancer.

Just a note - I buy Stacy's Organic flour tortillas from our co-op they probably sell then at other places - in a simple plastic bag with a green slip of paper that says Stacey's tortillas.  I swear they have crack in them - they are the most delicious and durable tortilla I have ever eaten.

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