Roasting small pieces of meat.

[sepoy]

I am doing a slow roasted rubbed pork shoulder for dinner tonight but accidentally defrosted some individual half pound chunks rather than a whole piece. The recipe calls for a 4 pound shoulder to be roasted for 30 mins at 450 f and then 2/12-3 hours at 325.

How much time should I be estimating to cook my far smaller pieces of meat? If I want fall apart meat would I be better off braising it as you would do with something like carnitas?

[Zalbar]

Braise them.

[greygarious]

Halve your chunks into medallions. Rub, sear in an oven-safe frying pan on the stovetop, then finish in the oven at 375 for 15 minutes, let rest till juices redistribute.

[ricepad]

If you're talking about pork that's cut more like country style ribs, then yes, you're probably better off changing your cooking method. Not that you can't roast them, but the margin of error for such small pieces of meat would be pretty small. You could go from tender, juicy, and delicious to dry and chewy in just a few minutes at 450F. Ribs and sauerkraut, maybe?

[sepoy]

It is a boneless pork shoulder shoulder which has been cut up. There aren't any decent butchers near where I live so when I visit the city I buy meat in bulk, portion it out and then freeze it.

[ricepad]

How about some kind of stew? Pozole, or chile verde?