Pork Shoulder Braised in Reduced Red Wine Sauce

This is an extremely easy dish to make and also required minimum time be in the kitchen. Basically you brown all sides of the large chunk of inexpensive cut, i.e. shoulder, brisket, collar with seasoning (always and only salt and freshly ground black pepper). Leave those yellow-brown sticky bits on the pot as those are packed with flavours. If you do it right, it will look like below:

Browned large chunk of pork shoulder

Then using the same pot, sautee whatever but preferable thick veggie u can think of, just to name a view: carrot, onion, leek, potato, garlic, celery....etc until brown. Then you add red wine of you selection at preferred amount then bring to boil and reduce the liquid until less than half of the original (this way the alcohol will be evaporated and the wine taste will be intensified). Then you add stock, i prefer the all purpose chicken stock, bring to boil again then add in all the meats you seared earlier. You can also add herbs like rosemary, thymes, bay leaf...etc for more body to the finishing sauce. 

All ingredients into the pot

Then being it to a very gentle shimmer for about 3 hours (varies depending on size of meat and type of meat). Remember to close the lid to ensure all the juicy goodness stays inside the pot during the long 3 hours. Check regularly to ensure no overcook. Once the meat is to the liking tenderness, remove everything from the pot and left only the stock.  On high heat, boil the remaining stock to further reduce it (as mentioned above, to intensify the flavour). At this point you can add unsalted butter to bring all flavour together, some prefer cream to thicken up the sauce. Anyway you choice. 

Assembly: Gravy/Sauce is second last. My style is to sprinkle some spices to finish the garnish

Always balance any meat dish with veg for a healthy meals. For this particular dish, i used blanched french bean and backed capsicum. Also i made simple mashed potato as base for the meat. It is all then assembly time while the sauce is reducing. Always taste it and give it a pinch of salt and pepper if you think you need a bolder flavour. And finally, here you go: Pork Shoulder Braised in Reduced Red Wine Sauce. 

Finished product. A balanced dish from texture, colour and flavour.