What Jamie Oliver Considers To Be His Favorite Meat Dish
Celebrity chef and cookbook author Jamie Oliver enjoys plenty of comfort foods. According to Oliver's website, some of the meat dishes that he finds particularly comforting include Double Whammy Toad In The Hold, Chicken Katsu Curry, Sticky Chinese Ribs, Beef Wellington, and Chicken Satay. But if you're wondering what Oliver's favorite meat dish is, wonder no longer. The former "Naked Chef" star revealed that slow-roasted pork shoulder tops his list of meat dishes.
Pork shoulder is meat that's cut from the top of the front leg of a hog. Since this meat can be really dense because it comes from a muscle that a hog uses a lot, a slow roast makes the meat much more tender. When discussing his love of slow-roasted pork shoulder, Oliver told Taste of Home that "really tender meat is the holy grail." There are boneless cuts of pork shoulder, which take less time to cook, and bone-in cuts, which pack lots of delicious flavor – two things on the list of what you should look for when picking out a pork shoulder. Oliver's choice for his slow-roasted pork shoulder recipe is a bone-in cut. And there's a particular way Oliver cooks his bone-in pork shoulder to make it incredibly tasty.
How Jamie Oliver makes his slow-roasted pork shoulder taste delicious
If you're thinking of purchasing some pork shoulder to slow roast, which should be cheap since pork shoulder is so inexpensive, you may want to follow Oliver's lead to make your meat dish especially delicious. When Oliver preps his pork shoulder, he dry rubs his pork with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Once his meat is sufficiently seasoned and it's ready to cook, Oliver sears the pork on the stove until the skin on the meat becomes very crispy. Oliver said of his recipe on his site, "Just try to resist that perfect crackling."
Once the skin on the pork shoulder becomes crispy enough, Oliver bakes the meat in the oven on very low heat until it melts off of the bone. Oliver loves pork shoulder so much that he even takes breaks from his vegetarian diet just to indulge. He told GQ, "I'm veggie about four days a week, fully veggie [...] I could probably manage it for a month or maybe two but I'd sneak back to a beautiful slow-roasted pork shoulder. I just can't help myself."
Jamie Oliver has tips for making the best pork shoulder
Oliver encourages home cooks making a pork shoulder recipe to slow roast the meat in a slow cooker for six to eight hours to get the meat really tender and juicy. To check if you've cooked your pork shoulder well enough to achieve that super tender texture, Oliver says that your meat should easily tear off into pieces with a few forks. To cook pork shoulder that is especially succulent, Oliver instructs to add liquid ingredients to your meat and reheat it. The chef says to add apple juice, apple cider, or meat stock back into the meat a little bit at a time until it is juicy enough.
The celebrity chef also has tips for topping off your pork shoulder once it's cooked to give it even more flavor. Oliver says to serve pork shoulder with a "jug of gravy and all the trimmings." He also says that enjoying pork shoulder with a good mount of apple sauce will make your meal even more delicious.