Braised Pork Shoulder in Salsa Verde: or, what seven dollars and seven hours gets you on a Sunday

The story:
Walking home a recent morning i stopped by my local grocer to browse around. They usually have cheap meats and I was planning on making a tagine so I stopped by the butcher counter. Sitting there in plastic, for 7 bucks, was a hulking, fat-encased pig shoulder. I bought it. Why not? Adventure-cooking, folks! And guess what...it turned out AWESOME.

The ingredients:

• 1 half pig shoulder, skinned and trimmed (this step is super gross, warning you)
• 1 bottle of medium-spicy salsa verde (forget making your own, this is gonna cook for seven hours so who cares)
• 1 bunch chopped cilantro
• 2-3 cups chicken broth
• Some dried oregano
• 1 chopped yellow onion
• Some olive oil
• One serious Dutch oven to shove that shoulder in

The cooking:

Skin and trim the shoulder. This is a gross and somewhat thoughts-of-vegetarianism-inducing process that is best done with kitchen scissors and a strong heart. Heat some olive oil, enough to coat the bottom, in a Dutch oven and brown the shoulder on all sides. Toss in the chopped onion, allow it to sweat for a minute, then add the salsa verde, broth, and enough oregano to smell it. bring to a boil then reduce heat to low, cover, and let cook for...forever. Until the meat is absolutely falling off the bone and the liquid has been reduced to a nice volume for sauce. Remove the meat, brown it for 30 minutes at 375 in the oven to get it all crispy and delicious, then shred the shit out of it, toss it back in the pot, add some cilantro and call it a feast.

The serving:

I made a bowl of corn, beans, rice and pork with sauce all mixed up, and it was perfection. I'm sure you can get real fancy with soft corn tacos and other non-bowl oriented foods, but it's a Sunday, so why would you?