(Courtesy Photo) Chef Elvis Torres of JP’s Whole Foods Market.
The Gazette asked various JP people and institutions to share their favorite holiday recipes. Whole Foods Market at 413 Centre St. offered the following:
Chef Elvis Torres began his Whole Foods Market career as a part of the opening team at the Jamaica Plain store in October 2011. From the Dominican Republic, Elvis was taught to cook at age 7 by his mother, whom he describes as very organized and disciplined in the kitchen. Elvis came to the U.S. in 1990 and eventually opened his own Latin-themed restaurant in North Carolina before settling in Boston’s Hyde Park in 2005. Elvis’s mother taught him the “secret of seasoning,” which he is sharing in this Dominican pork roast recipe, perfect for a holiday feast. Chef Elvis prefers to use bone-in pork shoulder, but you can use boneless, both of which are cut by the skilled butchers in the meat department at Whole Foods’ Jamaica Plain store. It uses Global Animal Partnership Step 4 Pasture Centered Pork from Simply Grazin’ Farm located in Fort Ann, N.Y., which is raised without crates, stalls or cages and with no antibiotics, no animal byproducts and no added growth hormones.
Dominican-Style Pork Roast (Cerdo Asado estilo Dominicano)
Serves 10
Ingredients:
8-10 lbs bone-in pork shoulder roast
1 cup 365 distilled white vinegar
Marinade:
½ green pepper diced
½ red pepper diced
1 ½ onion diced
10-15 garlic cloves minced
½ cup fresh cilantro chopped
Juice of 2 sour oranges (from the Dominican Republic and available at the Jamaica Plain store)
½ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup 365 olive oil
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ tbsp adobo
½ tbsp cumin
1 ½ tsp oregano
1 ½ tsp black pepper
1 ½ tsp salt
Method:
Prepare the pork first by soaking it in a big bowl with the cup of distilled white vinegar and some water for 20 minutes, and then give it a good rinse with fresh water. Transfer the pork to a roasting pan for marinating. Place all of the marinade ingredients except the salt in a saucepan and heat for about 5 minutes on low. Cut a flap in the top layer of the pork shoulder and with a knife cut several holes in the pork underneath. Rub the salt into these holes and pour the marinade over the top of the pork underneath the flap. Put it in the refrigerator and let it marinate for at least 6 hours or overnight if possible.
To cook the pork, preheat oven to 350F. Roast the pork, covered with aluminum foil, for approximately 3 hours. The meat thermometer needs to read 145F for the pork to be thoroughly cooked. If you are using bone-in roast, the meat should come away from the bone. To brown the roast, remove the foil, lower the oven to 200F and baste the liquid from the bottom to the top while the roast cooks for another 20 to 30 minutes.