Meal No. 662: Pork Shoulder Roast with Citrus Mojo & Green Sauce

When Boston butt pork shoulders are on sale, I'm inclined to grab one. This holiday season, I grabbed two. One was used in the best way I know how, for the New Year's Eve pulled pork barbecue meal. The other one I've been holding onto in hopes I could use it for one of the uncustomary recipes. Tonight, with a crowd of good folks around the table, and time yesterday to do the marinade prep and such, I decided to go with Alex Roberts's pork shoulder roast from his Brasa restaurant in Minneapolis. This is the second appearance of this wonderfully different meal: last summer it was just right for a crowd of regulars as well as some new New Orleans visitors.

The house sure smelled good all day long, given that I let this pork shoulder roast for about seven hours!

Tonight saw the return of a couple of summer-centric side dish salads: eggy potato salad and broccoli salad. Because these are so good (especially the potato salad), I had already over-made them and got the regular crew tired of them, so these recipes have been cooling their jets for a while. Once I determined that this uniquely spicy pork roast would reappear, to be stuffed with the green sauce into ciabatta rolls, the potato salad and broccoli salad just seemed a natural fit.

For dessert I offered up Emeril's chocolate cream pie, which in the past has been a popular item 'round here. I just hadn't made it in quite a while. When I tasted it, I wondered yet again what in the world keeps me from featuring this sweet concoction more often.

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"Pork Shoulder Roast with Citrus Mojo & Creamy Cilantro-Lime Sauce," by Alex Roberts of Brasa (Minneapolis, MN). Recipe in Food & Wine, May 2012, p. 152, 154.

"Eggy Potato Salad with Pickles," by Jenny Rosenstratch and Andy Ward. In Bon Appétit, May 2012, p. 36.

"Broccoli Salad," by Carolyn Purpura Mackay. In Cook's Country, August/September 2012, p. 7.

"Emeril's Chocolate Cream Pie," by Emeril Lagasse (2007). Featured on The FoodNetwork.com website.