a dish cooked in a pan that combines chicken, soup, cream, and a variety of Asian vegetables, including bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby corn, mushrooms, and broccoli. If preferred, top with rice or chow mein noodles.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 4 hrs 15 mins |
| Additional Time: | 8 hrs 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 12 hrs 45 mins |
| Servings: | 10 |
| Yield: | 10 servings |
Ingredients
- 3 ½ pounds boneless pork shoulder
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon crushed fennel seeds
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
- ⅓ cup thinly sliced shallots
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 volleyball-sized sugar pumpkin
- 2 cups hard apple cider, or more as needed
Instructions
- Cut pork into large chunks. Place in a bowl. Add salt, pepper, cayenne, thyme, fennel seeds, rosemary, and shallots. Mix thoroughly and cover pork with parchment paper. Refrigerate to let flavors develop, 8 hours to overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Add flour to pork and mix to coat. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook pork in 2 batches until browned, about 3 minutes per side.
- Insert the tip of a knife at a 45-degree angle into the top half of the pumpkin. Slowly cut all the way around to remove the ‘lid’. Scrape seeds and fibers off the bottom of the lid and inside of the pumpkin using a large spoon or ice cream scoop.
- Line the bottom of a baking pan with parchment paper and place pumpkin on top. Stuff the pumpkin with the browned pork; pour in cider. Cover with the top.
- Bake in the preheated oven until pork is very tender, about 4 hours. Pour in a little more cider after a few hours in the oven, since a lot of it evaporates. Remove from the oven and let rest; brush pumpkin with some of the rendered fat from the bottom of the pan.
- Scoop pork onto serving plates and cut out pieces of pumpkin to serve alongside. Combine remaining rendered fat with cooking liquid from inside the pumpkin. Let sauce rest for a few minutes so you can skim off most of the fat. Spoon sauce over the pork.
- While this would work in any pumpkin, try to find ones sold as ‘sugar,’ or ‘pie’ pumpkins, since they have a thicker, sweeter flesh, compared to the ornamental ones sold for jack-o’-lantering. I believe the variety I used was called ‘cannonball,’ but simply look for round, heavy-feeling varieties about the size of a volleyball.
- You can use up to 4 pounds of pork.
- Thanks to the little bit of flour on the pork, the sauce should have a nice thickness, but you can always adjust that with some more roux.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 348 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 29 g |
| Cholesterol | 63 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 20 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 632 mg |
| Sugars | 8 g |
| Fat | 17 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This was a great way to roast pork and the resulting presentation is impressive. The subtle sweetness that is imparted in the pork is very tasty. I would probably do two smaller pumpkins as opposed to the big pumpkin again. I reduced the sauce and mounted it with some butter. It was the best part. Thanks, Chef John!
My 17 year old daughter made it. She added less meat, less cooking – 3h15min, half a chopped apple in. Great taste! Thank you, chef John! 🙂
Made this up with four cheese Mac and cheese. No leftovers in sight which I was rather looking forward to. Have made it three or four more times, took a short cut and put it all in a crockpot. Just cut the pumpkin into pieces.
This is delicious. Couldn’t find a pumpkin so I used a medium size butternut squash, peeled and cut in chunks. I also used apple juice instead of hard apple cider. Husband happy.
I am a fan of Chef John but this recipe has a few flaws that affected the outcome. The pork pieces were tender even though all the sauce evaporated. I think the temperature was too high and the duration of cooking time was too long. I would make it again with modification of oven temperature to 300F instead of 350 and for 2 to 3 hours. The pumpkin split on one side obvious sign of over cooking in temperature and time.
Made it in small pie pumpkins & it turned out amazing. Didn’t need to cook as long and the meat was very tender!
Though my kids don’t like pumpkin (at all) they loved the pork and ate everything but the pumpkin. Hubby and I loved this. After mixing the pork and marinating ingredients I put the pork mix in a tub and froze it. So when I fancied eating/cooking this dish I just had to defrost and cook – no waiting for marinade time! I like to do this with a few dishes and shopping day is prep day for a few dishes that have a long marinating time just like this. It worked brilliantly and was very tasty.
This was absolutely divine . everybody loved it even the little kids. The pork was battery tender, so flavorful with all the wonderful spices. I can’t wait to make this again.
I made this for my family. The meat turned out very tender and edible but we didn’t care for the flavors.
Simple, beautiful, impressive to present. I tested using two smaller squash. One baked per the recipe while the second I added apple, grapes & sweet peppers so I cooked everything separately – pressure cooking the pork, convection for the squash, and skillet for the “guts”. Then combined everything and baked it an additional 1.5 hours. Seemed to work well but the original recipe is less labor.
Easy to follow the pork was very tender and full of flavor. The cider never evaporated like the directions said it would but it turned out great will make it again.
This is definitely going to be an autumn tradition in our house from now on. Made pretty much according to the recipe except that my grocery store only had smaller pie pumpkins. This actually turned out better since I filled two of them and then had more of the savory-sweet pumpkin to go with the meal.
This was a really fun, easy recipe! I had in-laws coming over and for dinner was making Chef John’s Creamy Pork stew. Since I had pork and an extra pumpkin on hand, I gave it a try. The seasonings and braising liquid were from the stew recipe. After browning the pork, I stuffed as much pork as would fit into the pumpkin and added the “stew sauce” and some extra apple cider for the braising liquid, then cooked as directed. It turned out just like the video, and was a great way to show off to the in-laws! In my opinion, the pumpkin was the best part, as it did take on the delicious flavor from the pork. Great recipe, Chef John!
Happy to try this recipe and use a pie pumpkin in a different recipe other than pumpkin bread or pie. Made as written and was happy with the flavor of the meat using fennel seeds and pleased with the tenderness of the meat. My husband was surprised how nice the pumpkin tastes (cross between a squash and sweet potatoe). Used my immersion blender on the cooked sauce with a little of the pumpkin for a smoother gravy. Don’t forget to save the pumpkin seeds to bake with butter and salt.