Kildare Pork Roast
Chuck Hayes, Newborn, Georgia - garliclover101@gmail.com
I worked with an interesting guy named Kildare Coradin several years ago. He hailed from the Dominican Republic. He was funny, gregarious, and animated. But just as importantly he was a gifted cook with a flair for bold and dynamic tastes. His recipe for pork roast (let’s call it Kildare’s Dominican Pork Roast) is below. You can find the marinade in any Kroger or Publix. Enjoy.
KILDARE’S DOMINICAN PORK ROAST RECIPE
Ingredients
• Fresh ham (not processed--skin on—usually about 8 lbs or so)
• Large bottle Goya Mojo bitter orange marinade---you won’t need the whole bottle, but having some extra is great.
• Sea salt/Kosher salt (not iodized table salt)
• 8-10 cloves of garlic
• Couple teaspoons of oregano
Directions
With ham large skin side up take a sharp paring knife and jab the ham through the skin about eight times (1.5-2 inches deep). Take a clove cut in half long ways and insert it into the slit as far as you can. With remaining garlic run through a garlic press or finely mince. In a small bowl add garlic, oregano, and about a tablespoon or better of the salt with enough of the marinade to make a paste. Push paste into slits cut into ham just like you did with the halved garlic cloves. Pour enough of the bitter orange marinade into bowl containing the remaining paste to form a thick, but pourable consistency. Pour/rub this all over the ham, and into any crevice that you can find. Place ham in large but shallow baking dish covered in the fridge for a couple of hours (overnight may be too long---haven’t tried it though).
Pull out ham from the fridge about a half hour before you put the ham into an oven pre-heated to 325. Bake ham for approx 4 to 4.5 hours. Check periodically to make sure that juices are not burning in pan----add water as necessary.
Many recipes call for pulling all of the tough skin off of the ham before baking, but what you are looking for at the end of cooking is a dark crispy skin at the end of cooking. If after about 3.5 hours you don’t see the skin turning the color/consistency that I described then move the heat up to 350 degrees (you’ll know when it looks right). But be careful not to let the skin burn. You just want it dark brown---baste if necessary during the last half of the cooking process.
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