Zy Restaurant's Tender Pecan Pork Recipe

Tender Pecan Pork from Zy Food Wine & Cheese in Salt Lake City

Chef Matthew Lake of Zy Food Wine & Cheese.

As I mentioned in a previous post, chef Matthew Lake recently shared two of his signature dishes in a class to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his restaurant, Zy Food Wine & Cheese.  Located at 268 South State in downtown Salt Lake City, the restaurant sits less than a block south on the east side of the new City Creek shopping center. 

Tender Pecan Pork is one of Lake's signature dishes, and it uses a  "confit" cooking technique, where a dish is surrounded by fat and cooked at a low temperature. He uses a pork shoulder, or butt, covers it with duck fat, and bakes it at 300 degrees for three hours.  The result is a pot roast-like tenderness.

  "Most of you are probably not going to find 5 pounds of rendered duck fat, so you can use canola oil," he said, adding that the oil can be strained, refrigerated and re-used for things like frying French fries  — or for making more Tender Pecan Pork! 

Tender Pecan Pork

2 pounds boneless pork shoulder

6 whole shallots, peeled

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon whole black pepper corn

Rendered duck fat or canola oil, enough to cover the pork

Pecan Crust

2 cups pecans

1 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon kosher salt

Portion pork shoulder into 4 8-ounce pieces. Place the pork in a baking dish deep enough to cover the pork with the fat.

Add the shallots, bay leaf and pepper corn. Cover with the fat. Cover pan tightly with foil. Bake at 300 degrees for three hours, until tender.

To make crust, place pecans, brown sugar and salt in a food processor. Grind until the consistency of wet sand.  Top the pork with the pecan mixture.

— Matthew Lake

Zy Food Wine & Cheese