Mojo Picnic and Onion Butter Rice

drbbq

Hi all,
I promised a report down below but I'm moving it up here.[p]I started Wednesday with a pork shoulder picnic, about 7 lbs. I stabbed it all over and stuck slivers of garlic in all the slits. I put it in a turkey cooking bag and put the whole thing in a big bowl. In a smaller bowl I poured a bottle of store bought Mojo Criollo. It's a Cuban marnade. I added three crushed cloves of garlic and a Tablespoon of cumin. I poured this all over the picnic and sealed the bag. For two days I flipped it every time I went in the frig.[p]Today I set up my XL egg with the platesetter and some lemon and orange wood I got from a guy in California. I wanted to get the skin crispy so I got the egg hot!! When I put it on skin side down, the dial was reading 550. I let it ease on down to a cookingb temp of 375. The platesetter on the new XL is only a couple inches from the cooking grate so it really put some heat on that skin at 550.
This worked really well. I don't much care about the skin but I know many people do so I wanted to try doing this. (At low temps the skin gets rubbery and is inedible)
After about one hour I drizzled it with olive oil and for about the last hour I had the top covered with foil.
I took the picnic off after 4-1/2 hours. It was about 180 internal and the skin was crunchy. Beautiful!!
The meat was excellent. The exposed parts were a little crunchy but nothing you wouldn't eat. I pulled it off in chunks. The small ones went right to the platter and the bigger ones got chopped a little. I ate it with a little Crystal hot sauce drizzled on it and with some Onion Butter Rice. I can't share that one, it's the first recipe for my next book.

Unknown

drbbq, well I crapped out on doing your double smoked ham, but I will do it again. I bet I do this new recipe first though. The ingredients are absolutely un-resistable and if I could find a bite of crispy skin with those on it, I'd do one in a heart beat. thanks for the lab work.

Gene

drbbq, you get around a lot, a while back I came across a story, The guy wase talking about cooking a Butt, He has been around a long time I think and at some stage of the cook he put it in a brown paper bag. I cannot find the Story anymore. Have you ever read about that? Thanks Gene

Rumrunner

<p />drbbq, that sounds great. I've been experimenting with 'mojoized' pork butts ever since I had Cuban Mojo Pork Sandwich at Porky's Bayside in Marathon. I've done two versions and I like #2 the best.[p]#1 I injected the butt with the commercially bottled Mojo Criollo Marinade and rubbed the outside with salt, pepper and garlic. Cooked like a regular low and slow butt. Pulled from the smoker at 195°, rested and then shredded the meat. Very tasty, but NOT what I was looking for.[p]#2 I pulled the blade bone from the butt and then cut the meat into six pieces. I then cut slits into the meat and inserted slivers of garlic. Rubbed with more garlic and s & P and some chili powder. Slipped into a FoodSaver bag with the Mojo marinade and let sit over night in the fridge. I cooked it at a higher heat, 300°, than I did version number one and only cooked meat to an internal of 180°. Let it rest for a few minutes and then I chopped the meat, instead of pulling it. I liked this better.[p]both of the above were served hot on an over sized burger bun with lettuce, tomato and red onion. [p]I want to try your method and get it crispy next time. Btw, the above pic was the pulled pork before I pulled it.

drbbq

Rumrunner,[p]Just recently I had a Cuban guy tell me that the skin being crispy was very important to him, and the same day a caterer I know told me that he had a Cuban customer ask him to cook a hog for them but requested that the skin be crispy. So I figured this was an important issue to the authentic product. That's also why I cooked a picnic. I believe that to be common.[p]If I were serving it to guests I'd do it the same way but I'd chop up the skin and serve it next to the chopped meat. It might be good to add a little to your sandwich.

Unknown

drbbq,[p]So you sliced this picnic instead of pulling it, right? You loosely tented the meat with foil at the end?

I'm a fan of crispy pork skin, too, so I'd like to try one this way. But you know, when I cooked fresh picnics in the oven as a kid, I cooked everything at 350 (still do, pretty much) and the skin was crispy. Maybe that's all the temp you need, the whole time?[p]Lee

drbbq

Eggsis,[p]You might be right about the 350 the whole way, but the egg idirect, much like your wsm with the water pan is a moist enviroment, and also the smoke seems to have an effect on the skin. I was envisioning a spit cooked hog but didn't have the nads to cook it direct. [p]It was chopped. I liked that for sure. The foil at the end was more like a skull cap. Kind of tight but only over the part that needed it. The skin remained exposed.