Puerto Rican Pernil (Roasted Pork Shoulder) Updated Cooking Techniques

I'm updating this recipe for Puerto Rican Pernil to include a few things we've incorporated after making it for several years.  Plus we tried two different ways of "roasting" it this year that worked really well.

We previously cooked the perniles covered with foil at 325 for 30 minutes per pound, then removed the foil and increased the temperature to 375 to crisp the skin.  Here's that method.  It's really, really good.

After some research, we decided to try cooking one pernil lower and slower and finish it off in a very hot oven to crisp the skin.  The results were really good, more tender than the higher heat method.  If you have the time, I highly recommend this technique.  It's pretty foolproof.

We also experimented cooking a pernil with my favorite kitchen gadget, the Sansaire sous vide immersion circulator.  If you have a sous vide machine, this is a really easy way to cook the pernil, then you transfer it to a very hot oven to crisp the skin.  It requires some planning as the cooking time is very long, but there's not much hands-on time.  Once the pork is in the water bath, you don't do anything more than checking the water level and adding water as necessary.


Recipe For Pernil (Roasted Pork Shoulder) Low and Slow Method

8-10 lb. bone-in skin-on pork picnic shoulder

For the marinade:
15 black peppercorns
18 cloves garlic, peeled
1 1/2 tablespoon dry oregano
4-5 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt for each pound of meat
Optional:  Some juice from naranjas agrias (sour oranges) is a nice addition if it's available.

Crush and mix the marinade ingredients in a pilon (mortar and pestle) or in a blender.  Allow the flavors to marry while you prepare the pork.

Lightly score the surface of the pork skin in a criss-cross pattern, as you would an Easter ham.  This will help  make it easier to break up the cuerito, the crispy pork skin, after it's roasted.  If you forget this step (like I did this year) you can chop the cuerito into chunks with a sharp knife after roasting.

Using a very sharp knife, carefully separate the skin from the top of the pork shoulder, starting at the large end, peeling it back toward the small bony end of the shoulder, stopping before you completely separate the skin from the bony end.


Use your sharp knife to jab deep holes into the meat all over, top, bottom, sides, everywhere, turning the knife to make the holes larger.

Reserve a bit of marinade for the surface of the skin.  Rub the remainder of the marinade all over the pork, using your fingers to work it deep into the knife holes.  Carefully re-position the skin back into place and use butcher's twine to tie it securely.  Rub reserved marinade into the skin.

Place in a ziptop bag.  Either double-bag or put a tray underneath in case of drips.  Refrigerate at least 24 hours.  We've increased the marinating time over the years and now marinate 3 full days before roasting.

Perniles resting in the fridge, marinating.

One hour before cooking, remove the pork from the refrigerator, remove it from the bags and place it on a rack in a roasting pan, skin side up, and cover with aluminum foil.  While pork is coming to room temperature, preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Place pork shoulder in oven and bake for about 8 hours.  Yes, 8 hours.  You'll see that the meat has pulled away from the bone, exposing the end of the bone, and a fork inserted in the side should have little resistance when twisted.

Increase the oven temperature to 450 degrees.  Remove the foil and carefully cut and remove the butcher's twine.  Roast until the skin is brown and crispy.  When done, the skin will literally sound crunchy if you tap it.  It can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, so keep a very close eye on it at this stage to avoid burning the skin.

Remove the pernil from the oven and let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes, tented with foil.  Separate the skin from the meat.  Carve and shred the meat.  Cut/break the crunchy skin into bite-sized pieces.  Serve the meat on a platter with the crunchy skin on the side.


Recipe For Pernil (Roasted Pork Shoulder) Sous Vide Method

8-10 lb. bone-in skin-on pork picnic shoulder

For the marinade:
15 black peppercorns
18 cloves garlic, peeled
1 1/2 tablespoon dry oregano
4-5 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt for each pound of meat
Optional:  Some juice from naranjas agrias (sour oranges) is a nice addition if it's available.

Crush and mix the marinade ingredients in a pilon (mortar and pestle) or in a blender.  Allow the flavors to marry while you prepare the pork.

Lightly score the surface of the pork skin in a criss-cross pattern, as you would an Easter ham.  This will help make it easier to break up the cuerito, the crispy pork skin, after it's roasted.  If you forget this step (like I did this year) you can chop the cuerito into chunks with a sharp knife after roasting.

Using a very sharp knife, carefully separate the skin from the top of the pork shoulder, starting at the large end, peeling it back toward the small bony end of the shoulder, stopping before you completely separate the skin from the bony end.


Use your sharp knife to jab deep holes into the meat all over, top, bottom, sides, everywhere, turning the knife to make the holes larger.

Reserve a bit of marinade for the surface of the skin.  Rub the remainder of the marinade all over the pork, using your fingers to work it deep into the knife holes.  Carefully re-position the skin back into place and use butcher's twine to tie it securely.  Tying securely with butcher's twine is essential for this preparation because the meat will be so tender after sous vide cooking that it won't hold its shape for roasting to crisp the skin otherwise.  Rub reserved marinade into the skin.

Vacuum seal the pernil in a sous vide bag.  We refrigerated the marinated pernil for 24 hours before sous vide cooking it; however, the marinating time may be unnecessary as the vacuum sealing and sous viding forces the marinade deep into the meat.

When ready to sous vide, set up your sous vide circulator and set the temperature to 150 degrees.  When the water comes to temperature, add the vac-packed pernil.  Loosely cover the top with aluminum foil to reduce evaporation.  Cook the pork sous vide for 36 hours, checking the water level a couple of times per day and adding more as necessary.

Remove the cooked pernil from the sous vide bath.  Remove it from the bag and put it on a roasting rack in a roasting pan.  Be careful.  There will be lots of hot liquid in that bag.  It helps to have a partner to do this.

Cook the pernil uncovered in a 250 degree oven for an hour or two to start drying out the skin.  Then increase the oven temperature to 450 degrees.  Carefully cut and remove the butcher's twine.  Roast until the skin is brown and crispy.  When done, the skin will literally sound crunchy if you tap it.  It can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, so keep a very close eye on it at this stage to avoid burning the skin.

Remove the pernil from the oven and let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes, tented with foil.  Separate the skin from the meat.  Carve and shred the meat.  Cut/break the crunchy skin into bite-sized pieces.  Serve the meat on a platter with the crunchy skin on the side.

Pernil (Roasted Pork Shoulder) For Christmas Eve

Pernil is the centerpiece of the traditional Puerto Rican Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) meal.  It's a delicious alternative to turkey or ham.  Pernil takes a bit of planning and a long cooking time; however, it's easy to make and doesn't require much hands-on prep time and it's made with budget-friendly bone-in pork shoulder.  Be sure to cook more than you need for the holiday meal so you can make Cuban sandwiches later. 

Recipe For Pernil (Roasted Pork Shoulder)

8-10 lb. bone-in pork shoulder (you may also see the word picnic on the label)

For the marinade:
15 black peppercorns
18 cloves garlic, peeled
1 1/2 tablespoon dry oregano
4-5 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt for each pound of meat
Optional:  I had some naranjas agrias (sour oranges), so I added some juice from them as well

Crush and mix the marinade ingredients in a pilon (mortar and pestle) or in a blender.  Allow the flavors to marry while you prepare the pork.

Lightly score the surface of the pork skin in a criss-cross pattern, as you would an Easter ham.

Using a very sharp knife, carefully separate the skin from the top of the pork shoulder, starting at the large end, peeling it back toward the small bony end of the shoulder, stopping before you completely separate the skin from the bony end.


Use your sharp knife to jab deep holes into the meat all over, turning the knife to make the holes larger.

Reserve a bit of marinade for the surface of the skin.  Rub the remainder of the marinade all over the pork, using your fingers to work it deep into the knife holes.  Carefully re-position the skin back into place and use butcher's twine to tie it securely.  Rub reserved marinade into the skin.

Place in ziptop bag.  Either double-bag or put a tray underneath in case of drips.  Refrigerate at least overnight and up to 2 days.


Perniles resting in the fridge, marinating for the big day.  We made two Perniles so there'd be plenty of leftovers for Cuban sandwiches ... yummy!

One hour before cooking, remove the pork from the refrigerator, remove it from the bags, place it on a rack in a roasting pan, skin side up, and cover with foil.  While pork is coming to room temperature, preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Place pork shoulder in oven and bake for 30 minutes per pound.  Increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees, remove the foil, and roast until the skin is brown and crispy, about an hour.  When done, the skin will literally sound crunchy if you tap it.  While roasting keep an eye on the Pernil to avoid burning the skin.

Although the USDA now says pork is safe if cooked to 145 degrees, this cut needs to be cooked low and slow to allow the fat to tenderize the meat and I recommend a finished internal temperature of 160 to 180 degrees.

Remove the Pernil from the oven and let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes, tented with foil.  Remove the butcher's twine and separate the skin from the meat.  Carve and shred the meat.  Cut/break the crunchy skin into bite-sized pieces.  Serve the meat on a platter with the crunchy skin on the side.

Puerto Rican Carne Mechada/Cuban Boliche Hybrid Recipe

All us good ole southern girls grew up with pot roast.  Here's a Latin twist on our down-home favorite.

Puerto Rican Carne Mechada and Cuban Boliche are variations on a theme of succulent stuffed beef eye of round roast, with a savory sauce, cooked either on the stovetop or in the oven until tender.  There are lots of recipes out there with varying ingredients and cooking methods.  The following recipe combines my favorite elements from each version and was inspired by a couple of recipes, namely Carne Mechada -- Puerto Rican Stuffed Pot Roast from the blog Platanos, Mangoes and Me, and Cuban Boliche from the blog CDKitchen.

This is so yummy.  Savoriness inside the roast, savoriness in the sauce, super yum.  The roast is tender because of the pre-salting and the slow braising, even though it's a totally affordable cut.  I hope you'll enjoy it.

Just a note:  I had intended to cube up some potatoes and add them to the Dutch oven during the last 30 minutes of cooking and just totally forgot (probably because we're so in the habit of limiting our intake of starchy carbs).  That would have been a really great addition, though, to soak up the yummy sauce, either that or a scoop of the fabulous white rice that Puerto Ricans and Cubanos are famous for.  This recipe absolutely screams for some potatoes or rice to sop up all the crazy good sauce.

Puerto Rican Carne Mechada/Cuban Boliche Hybrid Recipe


3-4 lb. beef eye round roast
Kosher salt
3.5 oz. package Goya (or your favorite brand) Spanish chorizo (divided use)
2 oz. manzanilla olives with pimientos (divided use)
1 head of garlic, separated into cloves (divided use)
1 packet of Goya sazon seasoning
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cubanelle peppers or 1 green bell pepper
1 medium onion
1 tablespoon dry oregano
4 bay leaves
1 cup red wine (I used Merlot, but I think the best option would be Chilean Carmenere if I hadn't finished off that bottle last week)
2 tablespoons capers
15 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 cup beef broth (I had homemade chicken broth so I used that instead)
1 bunch of cilantro

Rinse the roast and pat dry with paper towels.  Pierce a hole through the middle of the roast lengthwise.  I used a bread knife because it's really long and the blade is the same width along its entire length so it can make a nice even hole.  Rub the roast with a teaspoon of Kosher salt.  Rub the salt all over the outside and into the hole you just pierced as much as possible.  Let it sit at room temperature for about 2 hours.

While the roast is sitting and "salting," cut the chorizos into quarters lengthwise, peel away the casings, and slice the quarters.  Drain the olives.  Peel the garlic cloves and cut any large cloves in half.

Rinse the salt off the roast and pat dry with paper towels.  Time to stuff the roast with yumminess.  Starting with two chorizo pieces in each hand, insert them into the holes in the roast from each end until they meet in the middle, then insert a garlic clove or garlic clove half from each end, then an olive from each end.  Continue inserting two chorizo pieces from each end, followed by a garlic clove from each end, and an olive from each end until the cavity is filled.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Sprinkle the sazon all over the "stuffed" roast and rub it into the meat.  Let the stuffed, seasoned roast sit at room temp while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Dice the cubanelles or bell pepper and the onion.  Mince the leftover garlic cloves.  Cut the leftover olives in half.  Drain the capers.  Rough chop the cilantro.

Heat a Dutch oven over medium high heat.  Add olive oil.  Add roast and brown on all sides by cooking 2-4 minutes on each side, turning until it's browned all over.  Remove browned roast to a plate.  Reduce heat to medium low and allow the Dutch oven to cool until the oil isn't smoking.

When the olive oil in the Dutch oven has cooled a bit, add the leftover chorizo.  Cook and stir a couple of minutes.  Add the diced cubanelles or bell pepper and the diced onion, oregano, and bay leaves.  Cook, stirring frequently, until pepper and onion is opaque.  Add the leftover garlic and cook for a couple of minutes, allowing the moisture released by the veggies to cook off.

Add the red wine, stirring to deglaze the pan.  Add the leftover olives, the capers, tomato sauce, broth, and cilantro.  Bring to a simmer, then add the roast back into the pan.  Spoon the sauce over the roast.

Put the lid on the Dutch oven and put it in the oven to braise for 2 hours.

Remove roast, slice, and serve with lots of sauce.

Cooking With Cuqui, Installment 1

I'm so excited to introduce the first regular feature on this blog, Cooking With Cuqui.  My mother-in-law, Cuqui (pronounced Cookie), is originally from Puerto Rico, and has also lived in New York City, Carracas, Mexico City, and now in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.  I'm anxious to learn to cook her native Puerto Rican food, which is my precious husband's childhood food, as well as some of the recipes she learned in the other places that she lived. 

I'm so fortunate to have grown up in a family of great cooks.  I was helping out in the kitchen from the time that I was old enough to stir a pot.  With my mother and my grandparents, I learned to cook healthy, nutritious meals.  My paternal grandparents were East Texas farming folks and my Papa (my paternal grandfather) also was a decorated soldier.  In the time I spent with my paternal grandparents, I experienced a lot of good, old-fashioned southern "soul" food, the kind of food that is inexpensive to cook but so incredibly tasty.  And when I say old-fashioned I'm not kidding.  My Nanny Sue (my paternal grandmother) would have us prepare the food to feed the "menfolk" first, then the women and children were fed.  That's just the way she grew up back in the day in a family of southern sharecroppers.

My maternal grandparents were well-educated city folk who decided to move to the country in search of a healthier lifestyle.  They became gardeners and were interested in vitamins and nutrients long before it was trendy to care about such things.  I spent a lot of fun times with them in their garden, harvesting fresh fruits and veggies.  One of my biggest treats as a child was the weeks I got to spend with my grandparents in the summer, working in the garden, harvesting produce, and canning tomatoes.

At home we ate really well and really healthy.  My mom is a great, nutritious, frugal cook.  She's a very talented artist and she always taught us the concept that you eat with your eyes first.  We learned that the food has to be pretty on the plate.  You simply cannot serve a plate full of beige foods.

All this is to say that cooking is a family heritage that is important to preserve.  A great part of the reason I began this blog is to collect all the recipes that my precious hubby, Gordon, and I cook, including our families' recipes, in a convenient way so our kids can access them now and when we're gone.  My husband and I want to be sure that family recipes live on; therefore, it's very important to us to preserve the Puerto Rican cooking heritage of his family.

And now, without further ado, the first installment of Cooking With Cuqui:  Bistec en Cebollado, Puerto Rican-Style Habichuelas, y Arroz Blanco (Steak with Onions, Puerto-Rican Beans, and White Rice)

One of the many reasons I love this type of cooking is that it's done very much by eye and by taste, my favorite way to cook.  Please adjust measurements to your taste.

Bistec en Cebollado

3 lbs. cube steak
2 white onions, halved and sliced thin
1 head of garlic, separated into cloves and peeled
1 tablespoon sea salt (or to taste)
Couple pinches coarse ground black pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 lime
Olive oil for the frying pan
1 ripe avocado
Drizzle of olive oil for avocado
Sprinkle of sea salt for avocado

In a pilon (mortar and pestle) grind the garlic cloves with the sea salt, then add the black pepper, olive oil, vinegar, and juice from 1 lime.  Rub this mixture gently into the cube steak and set aside to marinate for 1 to 2 hours.

Heat frying pan over medium heat and add enough olive oil to generously coat the bottom, a couple of tablespoons.  When olive oil is warm, add the onion and cook, stirring from time to time, until the onion begins to caramelize, around 20 minutes.

Remove onions to a bowl.  Increase temperature of frying pan to medium-high or high, add a little more olive oil, and add some of the cube steaks.  (Cook in batches; don't overcrowd the pan.)  Cook 3-5 minutes, then turn steaks over.  Steak will release easily from the pan when ready to turn.  Cook about 3 minutes on the other side.  You want these steaks to be just cooked through but not overdone.

When all steaks are cooked, combine them with the onions in the frying pan.  Serve warm with beans, white rice, and slices of avocado dressed with olive oil and sea salt.

Puerto Rican-Style Habichuelas (Beans)

Olive oil
1/3 cup diced ham
1/3 cup diced Spanish-style chorizo (such as Goya)
1 finely diced white onion
1 finely diced bell pepper
1 diced tomato
3 or 4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
pinch coarsely ground black pepper
1/3 cup tomato sauce
1 large can of Goya red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup sliced green olives
2 tablespoons capers
1 can of chicken broth (use the bean can to measure)
1 packet Goya sazon
1 or 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 small green plaintain, shredded on a cheese grater

Heat Dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat.  Add olive oil to coat generously.  Add diced ham and chorizo and cook for several minutes.  Add onion and bell pepper and cooked until softened.  Add diced tomato.  Mash garlic with salt in a pilon; add black pepper and enough olive oil to pilon to form a paste.  Scrape garlic paste into Dutch oven, adding a little water to pilon if necessary to get all the garlic out.  Cook for several minutes.

Add beans.  Add tomato sauce, olives, and capers and cook for several minutes.  Add chicken broth, sazon, and vinegar.  Simmer over medium heat until flavors are well combined.  Bring to a boil and then add shredded plaintain, which adds flavor and is also a great thickening agent.  Cook at a low boil for several minutes, then you're ready to serve.

Cuqui's Puerto Rican White Rice

White rice sounds like the easiest thing in the world to cook; however, there's something special about Cuqui's white rice,  It's like a siren song to the family, beckoning everyone to visit whenever she makes it.

3 cups short-grain white rice
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 3/4 cups boiling water
3 teaspoons salt

Heat olive oil over medium heat (preferably in a Latin style caldero).  Add rice.  Cook and stir for several minutes.  Let the rice cook enough that it develops a little toasty flavor.  Add boiling water.  Simmer rice until you see "tunnels"  through the rice and until the rice stops making a lot of sizzling/crackling sounds.  Sorry that this step is a little hard  to describe. 

Using a large spoon or spatula, turn over all the rice so that all the rice from the bottom of the pan is now on the top.  Reduce temperature to lowest setting, cover, and cook for 30 minutes without peeking or touching.   Then stir/fluff with a fork.