{"id":4092,"date":"2018-02-14T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T16:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=4092"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:58:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:58:47","slug":"moms-roast-pork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2018\/02\/14\/moms-roast-pork\/","title":{"rendered":"Mom’s Slow-Roasted Pork"},"content":{"rendered":"

February 14, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing up, Sunday dinner almost always included some sort of pasta with my mother\u2019s long-simmered Southern Italian sugo.<\/p>\n

The sauce was made with large pieces of pork which were always served on the side.\u00a0 In addition, there might be meatballs, simmered in the sauce after being fried to a deep brown.\u00a0 Sometimes, actually, much more often than sometimes, there would be veal cutlets.\u00a0 This was back in the day when people didn\u2019t really think about how veal was produced\u2026or maybe it was produced more humanely back then.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n

Sometimes a pork roast would accompany the pasta.\u00a0 Occasionally, though not often, the pork roast would be accompanied by potatoes and there wouldn\u2019t be pasta on the table.<\/p>\n

A Sunday without pasta, though, was quite unusual in my parents\u2019 house.<\/p>\n

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The pasta could have been homemade linguine or fettuccine, which my mother and her sister, my Aunt Margie, made on a regular basis and then dried and stored in large rectangular aluminum tins that once held baccala (salted cod).<\/p>\n

Those tins had a myriad of uses, from protecting pasta and cookies to storing recipes and papers.\u00a0 Even though they were made of an inert metal, they had to be thoroughly scrubbed and allowed to air out, uncovered, for weeks to rid them of the smell of baccala.<\/p>\n

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My mother learned her style of Southern Italian cooking from her mother, Angelina (far left). No doubt she learned it from her mother (center).<\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sometimes the Sunday pasta was homemade ravioli, never was it gnocchi as my father didn\u2019t like gnocchi.\u00a0 Those were reserved for dinners when my father was out of town.<\/p>\n

Usually, though, the pasta was dried pasta from a box: spaghetti, rigatoni, wagon wheels, fettuccine, and so forth.\u00a0 Dried pasta is really a different sort of pasta with some different uses than fresh pasta (even if the fresh pasta is dried before use as mom and Aunt Margie often did).<\/p>\n

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I know many of you have heard me say this, but roasts in our house were much more similar in texture to pulled pork than the typical French-American style of \u201cjust-how-little-can-we-cook-this-hunk-of-meat-and-say-it\u2019s-done\u201d type of roast.<\/p>\n

A huge advantage of this style of cooking is that you can know in advance when it will be done because it\u2019s really the clock that counts, not the thermometer.\u00a0 I don\u2019t like making an American style roast for a dinner party.\u00a0 It makes me crazy.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t get to enjoy cocktails and I don\u2019t get to enjoy the first course because I\u2019m focused on when the thermometer might say the roast is done.\u00a0 While the temperature to be achieved is precise, the time is not.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the Italian style of roasting eliminates all of these problems because the meat is not \u201cjust barely cooked enough.\u201d\u00a0 The collagen begins to liquefy and the roast becomes unctuous.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t experienced this style of roast, give it a try.\u00a0 If you like it, look up my recipe for Italian Slow-Roasted Chicken or Turkey<\/a> for the poultry equivalent.<\/p>\n

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If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com<\/a> and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven\u2019t seen Bertha\u2019s Flan<\/a> or Melinda\u2019s Drunken Prunes<\/a>, take a look.\u00a0 They will give you an idea of what I\u2019m looking for.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Mom's Slow-Roasted Pork<\/h2>\n
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I have an assortment of blue spatterware roasting pans which are perfect for this type of roast. I also have an array of heavy stainless steel, aluminum, and enameled cast-iron roasters. The more important issue is using a roasting pan of the right size to hold the roast without crowding (it shouldn\u2019t touch the sides or top of the roaster) or without too much empty space. The initial cooking at higher temperature not only browns the roast, it helps it to reach the optimum temperature for collagen to break down to produce that pull-apart texture. You can easily increase the size of the roast. With a 4 to 5 pound roast, you would probably need to add another 45 minutes to 1 \u00bd hours to the roasting time.<\/div>\n
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Prep Time <\/span>15 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Cook Time <\/span>4 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>4 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span> 15 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
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Servings: <\/span>4<\/span> people<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ingredients
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