118. Braised pork with milk and herbs (Italian recipe)

There aren't all that many recipes of Italian national cuisine in my blog — only pasta with "a-la bolognese" sauce, pasta carbonara, lasagna with mushrooms and meat and the coffee dessert tiramisu. Time to put that right and share with you a recipe for pork braised in milk and wine with herbs. This dish is very easy to make but comes out surprisingly tasty. Details, as usual, under the cut.
Cooking time ≈ 3 hours.

Ingredients (for 8 servings):

• 1/4 glass of olive oil
• 2 kg boneless pork shoulder
• juniper berries, fresh rosemary, sage, bay leaf — to taste
• 1 head of garlic
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 750 ml milk
• 1/2 glass of dry white wine

Cut the large piece of boneless pork shoulder into parts. Rub the meat with sea salt and black pepper.

Pour the olive oil into a 5-litre heavy-bottomed ovenproof pot and heat it over medium heat. When the oil starts to sizzle, drop in the crushed juniper berries and two sprigs each of sage and rosemary.

A minute after the sage and rosemary, add the crushed garlic to the pot. Sauté for 1 minute.

When the garlic turns golden, put the pork into the same pot and brown it on all sides (8–10 minutes). If all the pork doesn't fit, fry the first part, put it on a plate, fry the rest of the meat and then put all the pork back.

Pour the white wine into the pot with the browned meat and bring to the boil.

Wait until half the wine has boiled away and pour in the milk. Bring back to the boil and take off the heat straight away.

Cover the pot with a lid and put it on the middle shelf of an oven preheated to 175°C. Braise the pork for about 2 hours 30 minutes, turning the meat in the pot from time to time and checking whether it's done. The milk should curdle and turn into a curd-like mass.

When the meat is tender, put it on a dish or a chopping board and cover it with foil. The liquid the meat was braised in can be used as a sauce. Strain it through a fine sieve, pour it back into the pot and simmer over a moderately high heat until it thickens and reduces to about 2 glasses. Before serving, cut the pork into large slices and pour the sauce over it. I recommend spaghetti as a side dish.

Bon appétit!

p.S

The pork can be braised in advance and left in the pot in the fridge for a day. In that case, before reheating the meat you need to keep it at room temperature for 1 hour. Once the pork has warmed up, carry on as in the recipe.