Brasato di Maiale alla Nicola Taurino

Preparation

1. Step 1

   Over a lively flame in a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil and soften the onion, carrot, and celery for a few minutes, until lightly golden. Add the salt, garlic, bay leaves, and rosemary, rolling the herbs about for a minute. In a mortar with a pestle, crush the cloves with the juniper berries, adding them to the pan with the wine. Bring to a gentle simmer, lower the flame a bit, and cover the pan with a skewed lid, permitting the liquid to barely simmer for 10 minutes. Cool the marinade.

   Step 2

   Place the pork in a noncorrosive bowl just large enough to hold it and its marinade. Pour over the cooled marinade, stirring the meat about. Cover the pork and marinade and leave it to rest for three days in the refrigerator, stirring the pork about in the marinade at least twice a day.

   Step 3

   Remove the pork from the marinade and set it aside. Strain the marinade and, in a medium saucepan over a lively flame, reduce it to one half its volume. Warm the olive oil in a large terra-cotta or enameled cast-iron casserole and sauté the pancetta lightly. Dry the pieces of pork on absorbent paper towels. Add them to the casserole—one or two pieces at a time, so that they do not touch—and seal them well on all sides. As the meat is sealed, remove it to a holding plate and proceed. When all the pork has been sealed, add the onion and garlic to the casserole and soften it in the fat. Add the reduced marinade to the casserole, stirring and scraping up all the residue. Add the red wine and the pork and bring just to a simmer. Over a gentle flame, braise the pork, covered, its lid barely skewed for 1 1/2 hours or until the meat is nearly melting into its sauce.

   Step 4

   Remove the pork from its sauce with a slotted spoon and cover it to prevent its drying while you finish the sauce. Over a gentle flame in a small sauté pan, heat the sugar, rolling it about until it melts and takes on a rich, golden color. Remove from the heat, and add the vinegar. Because the vinegar will be cooler in temperature, the caramel will seize. After a few seconds over a gentle flame, though, it will melt into the warming vinegar. Pour the caramel/vinegar into the sauce, blending the components and simmering the sauce for a minute before reacquainting it with the pork.

   Step 5

   The dish can rest for several hours or overnight or be served immediately. Some of its sauce can be used for pasta as a first course, if you wish, and the meat presented as a second course with nothing to distract from its lush flavor save great chunks of toasted country bread and jugs of the same good wine in which the pork was braised.