Butterfly but no stuffing?

Yes, you can  do this in theory, Except that  you'd need a boneless butt. They're out there, Costco routinely sells them this way. But they they won't butterfly well as they're allready split open oddly. One end remains pretty intact and you could do it with that smaller end.

The other thing to watch out for is that the stuffing may become quite greasy as a butt has plenty of fat throughout it. So you might base the stuffing on something less likely to absorb fat as much, say nuts, dried fruit and that sort of thing. I can see pine nuts, dried apricots, rosemary, some lemon zest and garlic.

If you want to use a whole boneless butt, you could make a paste out of those ingredients and rub it all through the deboned part. Then for the intact par, make deep slites with a petty or boning knife and pack the slit with the paste. For some of the thicker deboned parts, a slit would be good there too. Tie it up and roast away.

Injection is something to consider as well. This would work better with a bone in roast.

Oops, I misunderstood your point about the stuffing. Well, I apologize.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koukouvagia 

The inside of the meat wasn't seasoned at all and it really could use some seasoning.  I wonder if I could butterfly it and season it on the inside and then roll it up without a traditional stuffing.

Actually that's how I do it, I just didn't think of putting it in the instructions I guess. First of all I usually get a boneless pork butt, so it's already butterflied and rolled up. I usually make a rub out of thinly diced fresh sage, sometimes lemon zest, chopped or crushed garlic, coarse sea salt and black pepper. Sometimes rosemary instead of the sage. But you know what to do.  Then I actually keep the shoulder rolled up but I just go inside the slits with my fingers. Sometimes if there's a big chunk of meat without any slits nearby, I take a knife and make a deep slit, to insert some of the rub. 

If you want to do it with a bone-in butt without butterflying, just make a bunch of slits. Kinda like when I roast a leg of lamb, I keep it bone in, but make a dozen slits to insert whole garlic cloves. 

PS: I'm glad you liked the recipe and will be using for Xmas! Enjoy!! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koukouvagia 

 Oh what to do.

All I see is excuses to make the dish more than once. You know, to experiment!! 

You mention mustard. Another wet rub I use sometimes with pork shoulders is dijon mustard emulsified with oil. Eggless mayo if you want to call it that. Add herbs, garlic, S&P to the mustard, then emulsify with olive oil, and completely cover the shoulder with it. Roast as usual. 
 

If you bone the shoulder, you've pretty much butterflied it, haven't you? You're left with a somewhat shapeless kinda flat rectangle of meat, no? Then you can rub it all over, then you roll it up and tie it, and you're done. 

I don't like gravy. I love jus. Jus is more concentrated meat flavors. Bernard Loiseau took the art of jus to the extreme, making jus by deglazing the pan with water only. If you try it, you'll see you're left with only the flavor of the caramelized meat, but in a liquid form. After that, you can die. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koukouvagia 

But I'm one of those people that doesn't want meat jus in my side dishes

Aaaaah the jus in the mashed potatoes! That's all my childhood right there!! :) But ok maybe it wouldn't work as well with other side dishes... although in general I do like it: leg of lamb jus all over the onions that were cooked in the roasting pan? Hmmmmmm.... Yummy!

Having said that jus is always served in a saucière at my home. 

So please do share: how do you make your mustard-sauce? 

The saucier can hold... maybe about a cup of jus? There's only one and it's placed in the center of the table, passed around to guests after they've been served the meat and sides. Salad is never served along with hot items, it is sometimes served before, more often served after, usually by itself. There is, however, one exception, and it is with "Sauteed fried potatoes". I'm not sure how else to call them, it's when you cut potatoes in a large dice (3/4 to 1 inch cube), put some oil and a LOT of duck fat in a pan, heat super hot, and fry the potatoes in it. They end up almost like cubed french fries kindof. Then salad is served in the same plate along with the potatoes. And in that case you're right I wouldn't want jus anywhere near my salad, but I don't think we've ever served meat with jus along with fried potatoes and salad. 

Thanks for the description of the mustard sauce. I often do something like that but with white wine instead of chicken stock because I never have enough chicken stock in hand. I'll have to try with chicken stock though, I'm sure the consistency is much better. 

Just the other night my wife came home with pork chops and fennel bulbs. Usually I would sautee thinly sliced fennel with a bit of lemon and parmesan cheese, but this time I wanted something different, so I got inspired by that pork butt/onion/lemon recipe you linked to. First I rendered some of the fat from the chops, then I quartered the fennel bulbs and colored them in the fat, added some lemon juice and a small amount of honey, carmelized the fennel some more, covered the pan and placed it in the oven until the fennel was very tender. It was beautiful, nicely golden brown and very tender, I thought it was very good, although next time I'll try with even less honey (maybe just a teaspoon for the 3 bulbs) and a bit more lemon.