Review: Pernil (Roast Pork Shoulder) by Jeff & Jo's Puerto Rican Kitchen

Ratings - Ease: 1.5/5, Taste: 3.5/5, Price: $

Scale: Ease out of 5, with 5 being easy and 1 difficult. Taste out of 5, 5 being delicious and 1 being disgusting. Price out of 5 dollar ($) signs, $ being cheap and $$$ being expensive.

Link to the video recipe:

Link to the written recipe:

Making Pernil was something I've been excited about for a while, but I've gotta be honest and say I was a bit let down. My pernil ended up a tad dry, but more importantly, it wasn't perfectly tender and the skin was ready literally hours before the meat was.

I followed the flavors/marinade of the recipe exactly, and that aspect of the Pernil did come out well. Removing the skin was a bit of an issue, since my knife wasn't sharp at all. Eventually I got that and the marination done though. Jeff and Jo recommend removing the skin completely and laying it on top of the pork shoulder afterwards, but I left it attached by a little flap. It ended up shrinking a lot, making for a weird presentation, so maybe I should've done what they did.

There are a bunch of modifications I would make when following this recipe. One is to make sure you don't go by the times they give. I followed the ~3-3.5 hours they recommended for the size pork shoulder I had, and it didn't work out. The skin was golden and crispy, but the meat was still tough as nails. I had to remove the skin and eat it separately about 3 hours before I finished the meat. Even then, the meat didn't have time to become properly tender and succulent, but it was late so I had to make do with half-tender meat. Next time, I'll definitely wait until the meat is fully done, then start the skin-crisping process.

The "chicharron" AKA crunchy skin of the pork

You'll most likely have a lot of leftovers, which are a blessing. Put it in a toasted sandwich with mustard, ham, Swiss cheese, and pickles and you have the best Cubano (Cuban Sandwich) you'll ever try. I ate those nonstop for the next 2 days and never got tired of it.

The Cubanos I made with the leftovers

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Krishna Sreenivasan

Reviews of easily accessible online recipes, so you know what's worth making at home