Seared Hard, Smothered Sweet, Done in 45 Minutes

When I was a boy in Guadeloupe, my mother used to walk to the market in Pointe-à-Pitre on a Saturday morning with a basket on her arm and six children’s worth of appetite to feed. She never came back with the expensive cuts. She came back with the shoulder, the belly, the pieces the butcher sold cheap because they needed a cook who knew what she was doing. That is where my love of pork shoulder steaks comes from. Not from a restaurant. From a woman who could make the cheapest cut on the stall taste like a feast.

Back home we call the browning stage roussi. You get the fat hot, you get the meat dark, and you do not touch it while it is doing its work. My mother would slap the hand of any child who tried to stir too early. Then the onions went in and the kitchen changed smell completely, from sharp and scorched to sweet. By the time the lid came off, the pork cut with the side of a fork.

I cook them the same way in London now, on a Tuesday, with the supermarket pack that costs less than a sandwich. Shoulder is a working muscle, with fat through it and a little chew, which is why it has more flavour than a loin chop and why people get it wrong. They fry it hard and serve it straight away, and it fights back. Give it fifteen minutes under a lid with onions and my Flaming BBQ Sauce, and it goes sticky, tender and sweet with a chilli kick behind it.

One pan. Forty-five minutes. This is the one I make when the week has been long and I want something that tastes like a Sunday.

Recipe at a glance

• Cuisine: Caribbean fusion (a British supermarket cut cooked the Guadeloupe way)
• Prep: 10 minutes • Cook: 35 minutes • Total: 45 minutes
• Serves: 4
• Featured sauce: Flaming BBQ Sauce
• Heat level: 8/10, a proper chilli heat that builds through the glaze
• Diet: Dairy free. Gluten free as long as your stock cube is gluten free.

What you’ll need

Buy shoulder steaks, not loin steaks. The pack will say pork shoulder steaks or sometimes spare rib steaks, and they are the ones with fat marbled through the meat. About 2 cm thick is perfect. If they come thicker, give them five more minutes under the lid.

The sauce is my Flaming BBQ Sauce: a tomato purée and brown sugar base with balsamic vinegar, rum, garlic and English mustard, and chillies on top of all that. It sweetens the onions, gives the glaze its shine, and brings a heat that sits behind the pork instead of shouting over it. You will not need a fresh chilli.

For the pork:

• 4 pork shoulder steaks, about 180 g each and 2 cm thick (roughly 700 g in total)
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp dried thyme, or the leaves from 4 fresh sprigs
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

For the smothering:

• 2 large onions, halved and sliced
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tbsp dark brown sugar
• 5 tbsp Full Feast Flaming BBQ Sauce (4 for the pan, 1 to finish)
• 200 ml chicken stock, made with a gluten free stock cube
• 1 lime, zest and juice
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced, to serve

How I make it

1. Take the steaks out of the fridge twenty minutes before you cook. Pat them dry with kitchen paper, properly dry, because a wet steak steams instead of browning. Mix the salt, pepper, allspice and thyme and rub it over both sides of every steak.
2. Put a wide, heavy frying pan with a lid over a high heat with the oil. Wait until the oil shimmers and just starts to smoke. This is the roussi stage and the pan has to be hot. If it is not, the steak will stick and go grey.
3. Lay two steaks in the pan and leave them alone for 3 minutes. Do not poke them. When you lift a corner and it is deep golden brown, turn them and give the other side 2 minutes. Lift them onto a plate and do the second pair. They are not cooked through yet, and that is right. They finish later.
4. Turn the heat down to medium. Tip the onions into the fat with a pinch of salt and cook them for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring now and then and scraping up the brown bits stuck to the pan. Those bits are flavour. When the onions are soft, sweet and colouring at the edges, you are ready.
5. Add the red pepper and the garlic and cook for 2 minutes until the garlic smells sweet, not burnt. Sprinkle over the brown sugar and let it melt into the onions for a minute. This is the second roussi, the sugar catching on the onions the way my mother did it.
6. Stir in 4 tbsp of the Flaming BBQ Sauce and the stock. Let it come up to a bubble and scrape the pan one more time.
7. Put the steaks back in, along with every drop of juice from the plate. Spoon the onions over the top so the pork is buried. Put the lid on, turn the heat down low, and leave it for 12 to 15 minutes, turning the steaks once halfway. The meat is done when a probe in the thickest part reads 70°C and the juices run clear with no pink.
8. Take the lid off and turn the heat up. Let the sauce bubble for 3 to 4 minutes until it thickens to a glaze that coats the back of a spoon and clings to the onions. Stir in the last tablespoon of Flaming BBQ Sauce and the lime juice.
9. Pull the pan off the heat and let it rest for 3 minutes. Scatter over the lime zest and the spring onions. Serve straight from the pan.

The role of Flaming BBQ Sauce in this dish

Pork shoulder loves sweetness and it loves acid, because both cut through the fat. The brown sugar and balsamic vinegar in the Flaming BBQ Sauce do that in one spoonful, and the tomato purée gives the onions a deep red colour and a body that plain stock never would. Then there is the chilli. It is rounder than a fresh pepper from the market, and it builds, so the first bite is sweet and sticky and the third has you reaching for your drink. That is the heat I want on a pork steak.

When the glaze reduces at the end, everything concentrates: the sugar goes glossy, the vinegar sharpens, the chilli comes forward, and the rum leaves something warm and a little dark underneath. Four tablespoons in the pan and one stirred in at the end, raw, so the finish is bright.

Tips from my kitchen

• Dry the steaks. It is the step everybody skips. Water in the pan means steam, and steam means a grey steak. Kitchen paper, both sides, then the rub.
• Do not crowd the pan. Two steaks at a time. Four in a pan that fits two will drop the temperature and you will boil the meat in its own juice.
• Trust the lid. The sear gives colour, the lid gives tenderness. A steak that is tough straight after the sear is not a mistake, it just has not had its fifteen minutes yet.
• If you like this glaze on pork, you will like my Caribbean BBQ pork chops. Same idea, milder sauce, cooked on the grill instead of under a lid.
• Make the onions ahead. Steps 4 to 6 can be done the night before and kept in the fridge. Then it is sear, add the onions, lid on, and dinner is twenty minutes away.

What to serve it with

In Guadeloupe this would land on the table with rice and something green, and I have not changed much. My rice and peas soaks up the glaze better than anything, and the coconut in it calms the chilli for the children. For crunch beside the soft pork, a bowl of my Caribbean coleslaw with its green herb dressing takes ten minutes while the lid is on.

On a Friday I go the other way and make sweet potato fries in the oven while the pork cooks. Pork steak, sticky onions, fries dipped in the pan glaze, a squeeze of lime over everything and a cold ginger beer: nobody at my table has ever complained about that plate.

FAQ

Why are my pork shoulder steaks tough?

Almost always because they were fried and served straight away. Shoulder has connective tissue in it that a loin chop does not, and a hot sear alone leaves that tissue tight and chewy. The fix is time under a lid with some liquid: 12 to 15 minutes on a low heat is enough for a 2 cm steak to go tender. The other cause is too long at a high heat, which dries the meat out. Sear hard and fast, then finish gently.

Can you eat pork shoulder steaks pink?

I do not serve pork pink, and the advice in the UK is to cook pork until it is steaming hot all the way through with no pink left and the juices running clear. With shoulder you lose nothing by cooking it properly, because the fat keeps it juicy. Look for 70°C on a probe in the thickest part, or cut into the thickest steak: clear juices, no pink, and you are there.

Can you cook pork shoulder steaks in the oven?

Yes, and it is a good way to do a bigger batch. Sear the steaks and make the onions and sauce exactly as above, put the steaks back in, cover the pan with its lid or with foil, and give it 20 minutes at 180°C fan, uncovered for the last 5 so the glaze thickens. If your pan does not go in the oven, use a baking dish covered tightly with foil. An air fryer is not the tool for this one: it is a drying heat and shoulder needs the opposite.

Can you cook pork shoulder steaks from frozen?

I would not. A frozen steak will not brown, it steams and goes grey, and the outside is overcooked long before the middle is safe. Thaw them overnight in the fridge, then pat them dry and cook as above. If you are stuck, thaw them in a sealed bag in cold water for an hour and dry them very well before the pan.

What is in this dish for allergies, and what can I swap?

The Flaming BBQ Sauce contains English mustard, which is made with wheat, and balsamic vinegar, which carries sulphites. The sauce is lab tested gluten free, but anyone with a wheat or mustard allergy should avoid it. The dish has no dairy, no nuts, no egg and no shellfish, and it is gluten free as written if your stock cube is. For a milder plate for children, use my BBQ Sauce instead, the same rich tomato, sugar and rum base without the chillies. Vegetable stock or water works in place of the chicken stock.

Final word from me

My mother never had a probe thermometer or a recipe card. She had a hot pot, a cheap cut and patience, and she fed eight of us from it every week. This is that cooking, moved to a London kitchen and a Tuesday night. Sear it hard, bury it in onions, trust the lid, and your pork shoulder steaks will come out sticky, tender and full of fire. Cook it once and tell me how it went.

JP