Go slow: leisurely cooking makes a melt-in-your-mouth meal

Sunset, Nov, 2004 by Linda Lau Anusasananan

Mediterranean cooking expert Paula Wolfert takes it easy when she entertains. Her meals are not a blur of speed and anxiety but a measured cadence where food cooks unattended--often for hours--slowly and surely, retaining a succulence that's often forfeited in fast, high-heat cooking techniques. To Wolfert, slow-cooking means cooking at your convenience, with pleasure and rewarding results. She shows us how in her award-winning book, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook (John Wiley & Sons, 2003; $35). In it, she shares many of the same ideals of the Slow Food movement, which was started in Italy in 1986 by food writer Carlo Petrini in response to a proposal to build a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome. The movement promotes homemade, handmade food, biodiversity, sustainability--and, above all, taking the time to savor good food at the table.

For a special fall supper, slow-roast a pork shoulder. At low temperatures, cooking can accommodate your timetable. We've adjusted Wolfert's Night-and-Day Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder to fit into one day of cooking. Start the roast in the morning, and it will be ready for dinner. The skin crisps to crunchy cracklings, and the meat melts with juicy tenderness. Serve it with carrots butter-steamed in a slow-cooker, then finished with cream and olives. Add sauteed kale or a frisee salad and bread to round out the menu. Dessert is delicious despite its simplicity: toasted walnuts and tangy cream over chunks of baked butternut squash, plump with sweet syrup--and you can bake it two days ahead.

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Sweet Squash with Walnuts

PREP AND COOK TIME: About 2 hours, plus 3 hours to cool

MAKES: 8 to 10 servings

NOTES: Wolfert calls this Sweet Pumpkin Dessert in her book--pumpkins being members of the winter squash family. A convection oven is not recommended. You can prepare the squash through step 2 up to 2 days ahead; cover and chill. Bring to room temperature to serve.

  3 pounds butternut squash
  2 cups superfine or baker's sugar
2/3 cup walnut halves
  2 teaspoons butter
  1 to 1 1/4 cups creme fraiche or sour cream

1. Peel and seed squash; cut into 1-inch cubes (you should have 7 to 8 cups). In a large bowl, mix squash with sugar. Let stand until sugar liquefies, about 30 minutes. Stir, then pour into a deep 2 1/2- to 3-quart baking dish. Crumple a piece of baking parchment larger than the dish opening, moisten with water, then flatten it and cover squash, tucking paper around inside of dish.

2. Bake in a 300[degrees] oven (see notes) until squash is tender when pierced, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Turn off oven and leave squash inside until completely cool, about 3 hours.

3. Shortly before serving, in a 6- to 8-inch frying pan over medium heat, stir walnuts and butter until nuts are coated with butter and lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Spoon squash and syrup into small bowls. Garnish each serving with a generous dollop of creme fraiche and a sprinkle of walnuts.

Per serving: 344 cal., 37% (126 cal.) from fat, 2.9 g protein; 14 g fat (6.5 g sat.); 55 g carbo (2.4 g fiber); 29 mg sodium; 22 mg chol.

Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder

PREP AND COOK TIME: About 30 minutes, plus 9 to 10 hours mostly unattended roasting

MAKES: 8 to 10 servings

NOTES: You may need to order the pork from your meat market in advance. Monitor oven temperature with a thermometer before starting, and adjust temperature as needed. If you hold the roast in the oven after it is done, check to see if oven is still on after 12 hours of continuous use; some ovens turn off automatically. A convection oven is not recommended. For extra-crisp cracklings, pull skin off cooked pork, separate into bite-size pieces, and place in a shallow pan. Bake in a 400[degrees] oven until crisp and puffy, about 10 minutes.

    1 bone-in, skin-on fresh pork picnic shoulder (6 to 7 lb.)
    1 head garlic (2 1/2 oz.)
    1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
    1 teaspoon dried thyme
  1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground pepper
    1 onion (10 oz.), peeled and sliced
    1 carrot (4 oz.), rinsed and sliced
  1/2 cup oloroso or cream sherry
    4 cups fat-skimmed chicken broth
  1/4 teaspoon dried hot chile flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons sherry vinegar or balsamic vinegar

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1. Rinse pork and pat dry. Score skin in a crisscross diamond pattern, making 1/8-inch-deep cuts about 1 inch apart. Separate and peel garlic cloves. In a mortar and pestle, crush garlic, salt, oregano, thyme, and pepper into a coarse paste (or mince garlic, then mix with salt, herbs, and pepper). Rub garlic paste all over roast. Set roast, skin side up, on a rack in an oiled 9- by 13-inch roasting pan.

2. Roast in a 450[degrees] oven (see notes) until deep golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes.

3. Remove pan from oven and scatter onion and carrot slices around pork. Pour 1/4 cup sherry and 2 cups broth into pan. Add chile flakes. Baste pork with some of the pan juices. Reduce oven temperature to 225[degrees] and bake until a thermometer inserted through the center of thickest part at bone reads 170[degrees] to 175[degrees], 8 to 9 hours (do not insert thermometer before the last hour of roasting). If pork is done before you're ready to serve, reduce oven temperature to 160[degrees] and hold in oven up to 4 hours.