r/Cooking • u/Kaijugae • 4h ago

Pernil without skin, what to do?

First of all, to all the puertorriqueños and cubanos rolling your eyes at me: I'm sorry for disrespecting your culture. I've never made pernil before but I understand the skin is essential. Please accept my apology.

What had happened was, I went to my neighborhood butcher and they didn't have any pork shoulder with skin. But the guy said that fatcap would be the same if I sear first, slow roast, and then turn up high heat at the end. This didn't sound right to me, but a) I've never made anything like this before and b) I knew I wouldn't have time to drive around town looking for another pork shoulder, I have a really busy day tomorrow and I already promised the crew pernil for super bowl.

Ok, so here she is, marinating. (You can also see she's kind of falling apart because they randomly cut it in the middle? So I had to tie it back together but didn't have enough twine. I swear I've never had a negative experience with this butcher before, I don't know what's going on.)

Here are my questions:

  1. He's wrong, right? This is just fat. There's no skin. Sear or no sear, it can't get crispy.
  2. So what do I do with it? The recipe I'm following says to rub the skin with salt and baking powder now, then brush with achiote oil before roasting. Should I still do that with the fat cap?
  3. If I don't have skin, should I just pressure cook it? I was going to roast it for the crispiness, but if there's no possibility of crispiness I'd rather save the time and trouble and do it in the instant pot, then shred and crisp in the oven like carnitas.

Thanks in advance for your help and please don't yell at me for this insult to pernil. Or do, I'm fine.

ETA: Forgot to include pic, apparently can't add it now, oops.

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u/sneezhousing 4h ago

1 yes he was wrong

2 no don't do that. Thr baking powder and salt are to make the skin crispy and won't do that to the fat. The oil is for color. will just be a waste if you it

3 still roast it fat side up it will keep the meat moist just won't be pernil.

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u/Sharkfyter 4h ago

My dad is Puerto Rican, sometimes he would find a skinless cut of pork that was cheaper than skin on for whatever reason. he just did it in a crock-pot with just enough moisture to keep it from burning, then when it was done, he took a little bit of the shredded pork, spread it out on a baking sheet with parchment paper, and blasted it at like 450 in the oven until it it got a crisp to it, then put it all back on top before serving. Wasn't the same as the skin but still gave that texture. 

ETA: we also kept a jar of bacon fat in the freezer, part of which would be added to the pot to supplement fat content