Chinese Pork Buns

For my 30th birthday party:
1. Steamed Buns
2. Braised Pork Shoulder with Chinese Spices
3. Pickles
4. Shitake mushrooms (for vegetarians)

1. Steamed Buns
[To be inserted - Alton Brown + Momofuku = 50 buns]

2. Braised Pork Shoulder with Chinese spices
Adapted from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food, p. 139.

Clean a 6 lb bone-in pork shoulder.

The night before roasting, rub pork shoulder with this mixture:

3/4 tBsp salt, ground

1/4 tsp black pepper, ground

grapeseed oil

Slice a head of garlic into slivers, poke holes into pork shoulder with a knife, and put slivers in the holes.

Cover and refrigerate the pork shoulder until 1 hour before cooking.

Brown the pork shoulder, and remove.

Place in Le Creuset french oven:

1 yellow onion (or the whites of a bunch of scallions), roughly sliced

1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 tsp demerara sugar

1/8 cup soy sauce
1 cup Chinese rice wine
hot water to cover
spices (see below)

In a cheese cloth bag:
4 star anise
1/2 cinnamon stick
1 ginger root, sliced
orange zest strips (from 1/2 an orange)
1 red chili pepper, broken in half

Preheat oven to 375F. Place meat on top of vegetables, and pour in hot water. Water should reach 1/3 way up the roast. Add spice bag.

Roast in oven, covered, for 75 minutes. Turn roast over and cook for another 30 minutes. Turn and cook for 30 minute increments until roast is tender. Total roasting time should be about 3 hours.

Remove roast, shred meat. Remove vegetables, and place meat back into sauce. Serve with steamed buns, scallions and pickles.