From golden brown roast turkey to glistening glazed ham to garlic-stuffed pork shoulder (read on), the protein centerpiece of the holiday table is always a big deal. For Tiffany Negron of El Lechon de Negron, the traditional roast pork centerpiece of Puerto Rican Christmas dinner just so happens to be at the center of the family restaurant and food truck. Called pernil, the dish is a low-and-slow pork shoulder recipe. With a little help from her lifelong-cook and father Manuel, Negron built a business on it, opening the El Lechon de Negron food truck in 2012 and following that up with a brick-and-mortar spot in Union in 2015, where she works alongside her father, her sister Stacie, her husband Vincenzo, and her niece Allie-Nicole. While their menu is studded with other Puerto Rican dishes—pasteles, mofongo, even Jersey-homage pernil-topped lechón Disco fries—it’s the family pernil recipe that’s the heart and soul of the business. With the Christmas season somehow already at its tinsel-tangled peak, we caught up with Tiffany—who, along with her family, will be cranking out pernil catering orders through Christmas Eve—to ask about the Puerto Rican roots of the family business, the elements of a traditional Puerto Rican Christmas table, and the ridiculously tasty pork dish at the center of both.
Table Hopping: The restaurant and food truck are a family business. How did you get into the industry?
Tiffany Negron: I was bartending for years and always wanted to have my own business. And a food truck was a good start, economical. I actually had a totally different business concept in mind, then I went to a family barbecue where my father roasted a pig and I completely scratched what I’d wanted to do. Once I saw a hundred-pound pig just appear in five minutes, I was like, “Yeah, we gotta do Puerto Rican food.”
TH: It seems like family is a big part of the restaurant’s culture. Is that where you learned to cook, at home?
TN: My mom and dad are both amazing cooks. My father was born in Puerto Rico, in Utuado. He came to the United States when he was 16. He definitely taught me a lot about cooking. Growing up in Puerto Rico, he started cooking at a very young age, helping his parents and stuff like that. And he taught me, from picking the right produce, making platanos, everything.
TH: There’s a cool video on the restaurant’s Instagram of you making pasteles with your dad. I also notice his nickname is “Papa Mofongo”?
TN: He loves mofongo. It’s like, his thing. As a cook, of course you cook everything, but you have that one dish you really enjoy cooking. He brags about his mofongo. So we called him “Papa Mofongo” one day and it’s stuck for years.
TH: For anyone not lucky enough to have eaten mofongo yet, can you explain what it is?
TN: Mofongo is like mashed green fried plantains. You take green plantains, chop them, fry them and mash them. Then you add seasoning, fresh garlic. You could add crispy pork. It’s a really traditional dish in Puerto Rico. It’s so rich, with layers of flavor.
TH: How about your pernil! My understanding is it’s a Puerto Rican holiday dish, kind of like turkey at Thanksgiving?
TN: It’s definitely a holiday dish that a lot of Puerto Rican families make. At any special event, really, you’ll definitely find Puerto Rican people cooking pernil.
TH: How would you describe it? What’s the process for making it?
TN: It’s a pork shoulder, but you roast it for hours. A minimum of seven hours, only because some pigs are bigger than others and take longer to reach the proper temperature. It’s definitely a labor of love. You have to season it first: make nice slices in the skin, the more garlic the better, sofrito, and your own seasonings. Then you put it in the oven and let it slow roast. In the last hour or 45 minutes, you uncover it and turn it onto high heat to crisp the skin. It’s all on the bone, with the skin still on it. All that stuff—bone, skin, fat, that’s all flavor!
TH: I would imagine you guys go through a lot of pernil, especially this season?
TN: Yeah, we’re known for our pernil. With our ovens, we’re cooking 36 pernil every seven hours…we go through like 800 to 1,000 pounds of pork a week.
TH: Clearly you have the centerpiece to Puerto Rican Christmas dinner covered. What other dishes would you find along with it?
TN: You have to have arroz con andules, the yellow rice cooked with pigeon peas. You have to have pasteles, which are like a Puerto Rican tamale made out of green bananas ground with calabasa squash and a root vegetable called yautia. We make a “masa” with that, assemble it in a banana leaf with a little pocket of pork and boil it. That’s definitely traditional Puerto Rican Christmas food. Oh and coquito! Puerto Rican coconut eggnog made with rum, cinnamon, vanilla, coconut cream, and milk. I’ll make virgin coquito bottles that people can pick up at the restaurant. It’s really, really good.
TH: What’s your sense of the market for Puerto Rican cuisine in New Jersey dining?
TN: There’s a great market for it. New Jersey in general is just a melting pot. A lot of people are looking for not only Puerto Rican food, but in general that comfort food—the stuff your grandma used to make. If you’re Mexican, maybe your grandma made the best tortillas, or if you’re Italian, lasagna, or Puerto Rican, maybe rice. And Puerto Rican food, it’s all comfort food. It’s all food that your aunt, your grandma, or your mother cooked. Or your father! I never went to culinary school, but I learned from my parents, and people really respond to that. It brings their memories back.
TH: I know you offer catering. Are you doing Christmas pernil orders?
TN: We do a lot of catering. We have about 80 to 100 orders for Christmas. Pernil is really the major protein we do. Pork, rice, and empanadas. Christmas Eve is our big catering day. We’re only open to cook all the pre-ordered catering. After that, I give my employees three days off. They earned it!
El Lechon de Negron is located at 1331 Magie Avenue in Union. The food truck is “hibernating” for the season, says Tiffany, though they are still catering and have a food tent as well. You can also find El Lechon de Negron at food truck events. Tiffany says they regularly work with Midnight Market (“Every event those girls put on is a hit.”) In case you were wondering, yes, you can still place an order for pernil, which is only $35 and feeds up to 10. 908-577-6229