Barbara's Big Ol' Butt

Saturday 24 March
Holt was upstairs wrestling with TurboTax (thanks, Holt! No, really, THANKS!), so I handled dinner. This way of treating pork shoulder/Boston butt has become one of my specialties, as you can tell from the name. Its main virtue is, it takes five minutes to coat with spices, ten more to brown, and then cooks nicely by itself for four hours or more. Its second virtue is the wealth of doubles-entendres you can make ("now you know why most men like big butts," etc.)
So here are the spices to mix together for your dry marinade:
1/2 tsp. each of dry mustard, paprika, and thyme
1/4 tsp. each of savory, white pepper, and sage (if you're using dried)
a pinch each of nutmeg and ground cloves
1 bay leaf, shredded; if you're using fresh sage, chop up about 6 large leaves.
You can rub your butt with this (see?) and chill it overnight. Or you can do it right before cooking, with not much difference.
Now haul out your covered dutch oven, heat some oil in it, and sear the butt on all sides. Then deglaze the pan with a generous TBSP. each of liquid smoke and Worcestershire sauce. Chop up a couple of cloves of garlic and throw them in the bottom of the pan too. Cover it tight, and put it in a 325-degree oven for four hours or so. Open it occasionally to flip it around and make sure there's some liquid in there; if not, top up with more of the above, or a little white wine. By the last half hour, you should be able to shred the meat apart to soak in the bottom juices, and pull the bone right out.
Usually we just plonk some potatoes, turnips, and onions in this to simmer along for the last hour and get tender, but today's accompanying vedge was some nice small fennel bulbs from the market. They looked a bit wonky (spots of frost damage) but inside they were perfect. So braised them in thin slices with butter and water. They cooked beautifully, with all the water absorbed in only about ten minutes. Served on the side, decorated with fennel sprigs but not the usual grated romano topping, which would have conflicted with the pork savor.
There - it's immortalized. Now you can always find my butt, which is more than I can say for myself sometimes.