Braised Pork Roast

This is a tasty, juicy and flavourful pot roast.  The trick to keeping it moist is by braising it in the broth mixture.  Keep in mind that you need to have a really large roasting pan to be able to hold all of the liquid.  You can use the reserved liquid to make a soup or freeze it for future use. 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 Lbs  Fresh Boneless Pork Shoulder Roast
• 1 Tbsp  olive oil
• 8 cups (2L)  apple juice
• 4 cups (1L)  white wine
• 8 cups (2L)  chicken stock
• 3 carrots, diced
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 head  celery, diced
• 1 cup  brown sugar
• 5 bay leaves
• pinch of salt
• 1 bunch fresh thyme

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 275F. 

Prepare the liquid and pour everything into your roasting pan.  Make sure you leave enough room so that it doesn’t overflow when you add the vegetables and the roast later.  I used fresh apple juice that I got this weekend from the wine shop.  They were pressing about 300L of apples this weekend and were selling fresh juice for 2$/L.  Sweet deal and perfect for the roast.  I ended up only using 1 bottle of the white wine.  We drank the rest

VERY IMPORTANT:  Reserve about 2 cups of the broth for deglazing the frying pan after browning your roast. 

In a large frying pan, add oil and heat over medium high heat.  Sauté the carrots, celery and onions until translucent.  Add to the broth mixture in roasting pan. 

Now comes the best part.  Take your pork shoulder and brown from all sides in a hot frying pan.  I used the same pan as with the vegetables.  Don’t forget to brown the outer edges too.

When nice and golden from all sides, deglaze the pan with the reserved broth.  Cook for about 1 minute, then add the brown sugar and continue to cook for 2 to 3 minutes.  Then add this liquid mixture to the roast and broth in roasting pan. 

Now before putting the roasting pan into the oven, don’t forget to insert a cooking thermometer.  Since my roast was boneless, it was easy to shove into the middle of the roast.  Cover with lid and place in the oven.  You will then cook the roast until it reaches an internal temperature of 160F. 

The roast took about 3 hours to cook.  When done, remove it from the broth and slice on a cutting board.  The roast is done when the juices run clear upon cutting.  Serve immediately with some of the vegetables in broth.