asian lettuce wraps

I got this enormous pork shoulder on super duper sale. It was like $1.29 a lb, and it was $2.00 off because it was getting close to its use-by date (which, incidentally, was still three days away when I bought it! I love catching meat on sale like that. It feels like such a score). I packed brown sugar all over the roast, then set it in a beer-bath, like this:

I wrapped the pan with foil and sealed up the edges so that the steam would stay in and kind of braise the meat as it cooked. This baby went into a 275 F oven for 5 hours (I took the foil off after about 3 hours, because I wanted the fat to crisp up). When it came out, it looked like this:

It pretty much fell apart when I lifted it from the pan onto that plate. I just kind of shoved it back together for photographing purposes and then shredded it with two forks when the photo shoot was over. I also ate some. In fact, I couldn't stop eating it at midnight last night when I was shredding it. It was so good.

Today, I was sitting here trying to decide what to make with my new-found wealth of pork, when I remembered some lettuce wraps with Asian flavors that I'd done with a previous batch of pork and really liked. I decided to reprise that dish, and this is the final product:

The iceberg lettuce wasn't my first choice, but I forgot to get butter lettuce at the farmstand so I was stuck with what the grocery store could give me, which was either the decent looking iceberg or some fairly manky looking romaine. Not a terribly hard choice. Other fixings on the wrap include: the pork of course, shredded carrot, thinly sliced red bell pepper, cilantro, green onions, cucumber, (drowning in the) hoisin (of your lies) sauce, and sriracha. All of the crunchy, cool veggies balance out the soft, warm, fatty pork and the sweet sauce. Highly enjoyable...and aside from the hoisin, perfectly Primal!