Most recipes seem to involve a slow cooker (which I don't have), but I scrounged around and found a few that are helpful if you want to cook in the oven. The basic highlights are: The cut of meat isn't that important. Bone in, bone out, lots of fat or not, all of them work, so buy whatever is convenient. Of course people will argue endlessly about their favourite cut but people will argue about everything. If there's too much fat for your taste: Trim it. If there's a bone in: Cook it a bit longer. Next argument is about the dry rub vs a marinade. I like to use a bit of both, especially if I have the time. Last time a used a marinade with yogurt as a base and mustard, paprika and lemon as my flavours. Use a dish that's deep enough and has a lid, or you can use foil. I cut some veg in large chunks (onions, carrots, potatoes) and layered them in the bottom, poured some chicken stock over, spiced to taste, then placed the marinated pork shoulder on top. NB: The pork should not be submerged in the liquid. You are cooking and steaming the pork, not boiling it. Handy tip: You can use any liquid. Cider is popular since apples go well with pork. Depending on the size, etc, you are looking at anything from 2 - 4 hours at about 150C. Keep the lid on (or the foil sealed) for at least two hours, then you can start checking every half hour or so. If it has a bone in, the meat should literally slide of the bone when you pick it up to inspect it. If it doesn't have a bone in, just check with a fork to see how soft it is. NB: Once you start taking the lid or foil off to inspect, you also need to start basting the pork otherwise it will dry out. After that it's easy. Shred the pork and stir in some BBQ sauce, a mustard sauce, a chilli sauce, whatever you like. Of course, my recipe isn't complete as I've only made it once and it wasn't perfect, but it's really not that difficult. PS: I recommend you make the crackling separate. It's possible to do both but you're trying to do two different things at once so it takes some practice. These aren't great photos but they should give you an idea of what I'm talking about: With the yogurt mustard marinade. After cooking for a few hours. I didn't baste enough, so it came out soft but a bit dry. You can see the meat starting to slide off the bone. Shredded pork served with the veg that cooked in the chicken stock at the bottom. As you can see, soft enough to shred with a fork but slightly dry. Tasted much better after I mixed it with some BBQ sauce.
