How Do I Adjust Times For A Large Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder?

Our answer

Nigella's Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder With Carameised Ginger And Garlic (from AT MY TABLE) cooks a pork shoulder on a low heat until the meat is tender and then gives it a blast at a high heat to crisp up the crackling. The recipe suggests a 2.5kg (5½-pound) boneless pork shoulder. Any boneless pork shoulder with a weight fairly close to that size will take the same amount of cooking time, but 4.8kg is quite a bit bigger and it is likely that the cooking time will be longer.

We wondered if the shoulder has a bone in rather than being boneless, due to the size. A bone-in cut can cook slightly more quickly as the bone will conduct some heat to the centre. We would estimate that the bone-in shoulder would take around 10 hours on low heat, until the meat can be shredded with forks. Boneless may take 10-11 hours. As pork shoulder has a good amount of fat, the meat should remain moist with a longer cooking time and it is probably easiest to allow a longer cooking time as the shoulder can stand in the turned-off oven or in a warm place for up to 2 hours if it cooks more quickly. If you do need to let it stand then you may want to pop the rind back into a hot oven for 5 minutes just to crisp up the crackling if it has softened slightly. However, please note that as we have not tried the recipe with this size of pork shoulder, we are unable to guarantee the results.