Roughly crack the peppercorns in your mortar and pestle;

If your pork shoulder still has its skin, remove it, making certtain however to leave the thick layer of fat underneath the rind on the roast. While traditional German cookery leaves the rind on, we find that removing it before cooking makes the dish easier to prepare and present.

This next step is part of the traditional preparation, meant to soften up the rind. Without the skin, it yields a delicious crispy brown crust on the top of the roast. Score the fat on the top in a diamond-shaped pattern. Don’t score so deeply that you cut into the meat. Rub half your spices into the top of the meat, and the other half into the unscored bottom. Melt the butter in the roasting pan, and put in the meat, fatside down. Pour about ½ a cup of the beer into the roasting pan, and roast for ½ hour.

Turn the heat down to 350° and remove the roasting pan. Remove the roast, scatter the cut vegies around the bottom, return the roast fatside up, and pour in maybe half of the broth. Return to the oven. Roast for another 2½ hours, basting every half hour, and adding more broth and beer each time. You don’t want to roast boiling in broth but neither do you want the pan to go dry (though there’s very little chance of that with a cut of meat this fatty).

When the time is up (internal temperature should be about 168°), remove the pan from the oven, and set the roast on a carving board to rest 15 minutes. That gives you time to prepare the sauce: pour the juices from the pan into a fatskimmer, holding the roasted vegies back with the spoon. Discard vegies, and pour the fat-free drippings back into the pan. Add any remaining beef broth or beer, and cook down until thick. Thicken the sauce with cornstarch if preferred. Some extra freshly crushed peppercorns will really enhance the sauce, but neither is required.