Oh, my goodness. Oh, the goodness of Pernil.
I have been working with pork shoulder, also known as Boston Butt, for a long time, mostly with Pulled Pork Sandwiches? and Pork Roja?. This beats them all. Succulent, easy to prepare, insanely delicious, this Puerto Rican masterpiece needs to be tried at least once.
According to my research, this recipe is not completely authentic. And yet the woman of Puerto Rican descent who had it at my house said it took her home.
Puree all ingredients, except the pork, together into a paste. I use a food processor. A blender would work. Worst case, you smash it all up together in the bottom of a bowl and develop forearms like Popeye. Slash through the fat and skin on the pork shoulder without going deep into the meat. I like to do a kind of diamond pattern on the skin so that when all is done you have little nibbles of skin as opposed to big strips. Your call.
Rub the paste all over the pork shoulder and place into a dutch oven. Refrigerate for 8 hours, or more. If you don't have room in the refrigerator for a dutch oven, you could put the pork and the paste into a plastic bag and put it into the refrigerator.
5 hours before you want to eat (yow!) pre-heat the oven to 3250F. The pork shoulder goes into the oven for 3 hours, skin side up inside the covered dutch oven. After 3 hours, uncover the dutch oven, turn the temperature up to 3750F and cook for another hour, until the skin is crispy and the top is browned.
Put on a platter and cover with foil and let it rest at least 30 minutes or until you are ready to serve. Pull off the foil, cut the meat and have little pieces of skin for people to pick at.
It seemed a shame to me, but you discard all the greasy juice that is in the dutch oven. If I can think of anything useful to do with it, I'll add it later, but this dish was incredible just as described.