How To Prepare Puerto Rican Pernil

If you love the pork product, Puerto Rico is the ideal trip for you for Christmas. Another popular Christmas meal is pernil (pork leg or shoulder of pork) cooked with a paste consisting of garlic, olive oil, oregano, salt, and vinegar and then marinated for up to 3 hours to two days or longer, and later, it is slow-roasted. To ensure that nothing is wasted, the skin of pernil is removed and fried before being eaten as chips called Cuero. 

Ingredients to make Pernil

 1/4 cup olive oil 

 Three tablespoons of white vinegar 

 Ten cloves garlic or more if you like. 

 Two tablespoons of dried oregano 

 1 tablespoon salt 

 1 1/4 teaspoons of ground black 

 5 pounds of pork shoulder cut off excess fat 

 Directions 

 Instructions Checklist 

 Step 1 

 Mix vinegar, olive oil, garlic, oregano, black pepper, and salt in a mortar and pestle. Smash into a fine paste. 

 Step 2 

 Make slits deep into the pork using the help of a small knife. Fill the slits with the paste and rub any leftover paste on the pork. 

 Step 3 

 Place the pork in a roasting bag, then place it into a roasting pan with a rack. Then let it marinate in the fridge for up to 8 hours. 

 Step 4 

 Take the pork out of the refrigerator, open it up and allow it to come to the temperature of the room, about within 1 to 2 hours. 

 Step 5 

 Preheat oven at 300 degrees F (150 degrees Celsius). 

 Step 6 

 Skin-side down, roast the pork in the preheated oven until golden, approximately 2 hours. Then flip the pork and continue roasting with the skin side up until the juices run clear, with an instant-read thermometer placed into the middle registers at a minimum of 145 degrees F (63 degrees Celsius) 2 to 4 hours.