Habanero Pig Meat Soup

This recipe makes a mess of good soup with some tasty cooked pork left over. It takes more than a day to make it.

The pork shoulder is a great cut of meat. I can generally find them on sale for less than a dollar a pound at my local grocery. There is some bone and fat on a picnic shoulder, but also a good amount of meat. Cook it right and it is mighty tender!

Step 1.

1 - 6 to 7 pound pork shoulder or smaller half-shoulder

1 large can of frozen orange juice

Rinse the pork off and put it into a large, deep baking dish with a lid. I use a big old cast iron pot with a glass lid that my mother left to me. Make up the can of frozen orange juice and pour it over the pork in the pot.

Put on the lid and place the pot into a cold oven. Set the oven for 200 degrees and turn it on. I usually cook the pork for about 16 hours, I guess. Generally it gets into the oven sometime in the late afternoon. I let it cook all night, and sometime in the middle of the next morning I just turn the oven off, leaving the pot inside to cool.

By about the middle of the afternoon, the meat is cool enough to handle. Transfer it to a big wide bowl – it will fall apart on you – and cool the liquid so you can skim off the fat. You will have to go through with your fingers and separate the good meat from all the fat and bone. Put the good stuff aside and get rid of the rest.

Step 2.

a couple tablespoons of olive oil

a couple of cloves of garlic, minced

a couple of red onions, chopped into medium pieces

a half dozen carrots, cut into ½ inch pieces

1 or 2 yams or sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into medium pieces

2 orange bell peppers, stem and seeds removed and cut into medium pieces

1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed, and cut into medium pieces

2 red jalopeno peppers, stem and seeds removed and cut into small pieces

1 or 2 habanero peppers, whole

black pepper, to taste

Lea & Perrins Original Worcestershire Sauce, 1 or 2 tablespoons

the liquid from the pork shoulder in Step 1, cooled, fat skimmed, and strained

 

Let the liquid from the first step cool until the fat solidifies on top, and then skim the fat off and discard it. Strain the liquid through a wire sieve and set it aside.

Heat a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the olive oil, then the garlic, and fry the garlic until it just starts to brown. Add the red onion and fry, stirring regularly, until the onions begin to brown. Add the red jalopeno peppers and fry for a minute or two. Then add the orange bell peppers and stir. Let this cook, stirring regularly for a few minutes.

Meanwhile use a steamer – or a microwave if you want – to cook the carrots, potatoes, and squash until the pieces just begin to yield to a sharp fork. I usually cook each vegetable separately since they don’t all cook at the same rate – with a steamer this doesn’t take too long. As each vegetable is ready, add it to the stockpot and stir it in.

Once everything is in the stockpot, add the liquid from the first step. Prick the skins of the habanero peppers several times with a sharp fork and add them to the stockpot along with the pepper and Worcestershire Sauce. Once it has come to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and let it simmer for an hour or so. Just before you serve it, add as much of the pork from the first step, sliced across the grain in ½ inch thick slices, as you want. After all, it has already been cooked.

Now, this is meant to be a spicy hot soup – the use of habanero peppers tells you that I am serious about the heat. The habanero is one of the hottest peppers in the world. According to Diana Kennedy:

"This ‘Havana’ chili is shaped like a small lantern, about 1 inch across at its widest part and a little over 1 inch long. It is a light green color and turns, as it ripens, to a bright orange. It should not, however, be confused with the smaller lantern-shaped chili, called aji, which is often given away free when you buy coriander in Puerto Rican and Dominican groceries. The chili habanero has the reputation of being the hottest of the lot - if anyone can really judge - but it does have a distinctive and delicious flavor."

The point is that the habanero is really hot! If you handle a habanero and then touch yourself or a friend on a sensitive area of the body, you will bring some hurt into your life for sure! A lot of people I know wear latex or rubber gloves when handling these peppers. I generally wash my hands with Fels Naptha soap afterwards – the same thing you should use to remove the oils from poison ivy plants. It takes off the hot oil from the pepper – along with some of your hide.

Two habaneros give the soup a fair kick. Add just one if you don’t like spicy food – it won’t kill you. If you like a lot of heat, add three or more. After the soup has simmered for an hour or so, I usually take the habaneros out. They will stay in one piece and are not hard to find. On the other hand, you can always leave them in – just warn people who might not want to eat one.

You can serve this as a soup or over rice if you want. I would imagine you could serve it over pasta although I haven’t ever tried it. Any pork that is left over can be served as an entrée or in a sandwich. Basically what you have there is pulled pork.