American cooking Recipes & regional stories

Skillet & Sage

A culinary journey through the fifty states

The regional table / Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Roast Pork with Broccoli Rabe and Sharp Provolone

Published September 23, 2026 · Pennsylvania

Jump to Recipe

Pork, bitter greens and sharp cheese in a roll, and the bitterness is the point rather than a fault to cook out.

This sandwich is usually introduced with a line about how it is older than the cheesesteak and how Philadelphia knows it. The first half of that could not be verified for this article and the second half turns out to be wrong. Visit Philadelphia, the region's official tourism agency and not the city government — phila.gov refuses automated requests outright — writes that the roast pork sandwich is as old as the cheesesteak but less known, and that it has gained acclaim among in-the-know locals. As old as, not older than. The same agency dates the cheesesteak's origin to 1930 and, a few paragraphs away, puts a South Philadelphia caterer's riverside shack in that same year. So the two sandwiches are contemporaries in the only account the city's own body has published, and the fashionable claim that one predates the other is not something this site is going to repeat on nobody's authority. What that agency does say about the descent is worth having: roots in the cuisine of the Abruzzese region of Italy, whose people emigrated to Philadelphia in numbers, and a pork rubbed with garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary, fennel and a little wine, laid with sharp provolone and cooked greens on the same crusty roll the other sandwiches use. That is an origin story told by a marketing body, and it is printed here as exactly that.

The parts, on the other hand, are documentable to the gram. The cheese first: sharp provolone is a trade description and not a legal one. The federal standard at 21 CFR 133.181 defines provolone as a pasta filata or stretched-curd cheese, prepared by matting and cutting the curd, immersing it in hot water and kneading and stretching it until it is smooth and free from lumps, then molding it, firming it in cold water, salting it in brine, drying it and giving it some additional curing. It fixes the minimum milkfat at 45 percent of the solids and the maximum moisture at 45 percent, and it requires cheese made from unpasteurised milk to be cured at not less than 35°F for at least 60 days. It permits smoking. What it never does is grade the cheese by age or use the word sharp at all — so piccante provolone is the cheesemaker's promise, not the government's, and the only way to buy it is to ask the counter how long it has been hanging. Then the greens, where the folklore is that bitterness is a cooking fault. It is not: it is bred in. Broccoli rabe is not broccoli. It belongs to Brassica rapa, the turnip species, and the 2022 survey of B. rapa metabolic diversity in Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, which profiled 102 genotypes across fourteen subspecies groups, files broccoletto among them alongside turnip, pak choi, caixin and mizuna. Its bitterness rides on glucosinolates, and how much of them a plant carries is a varietal property. Padilla, Cartea, Velasco, de Haro and Ordás measured 113 varieties of B. rapa greens grown at two sites and published the result in Phytochemistry in 2007: sixteen glucosinolates identified, gluconapin and glucobrassicanapin dominant, and total content ranging from about 12 to 74 micromoles per gram of dry weight at one site and about 8 to 57 at the other. That is a six-fold to seven-fold spread between varieties of the same species, and they found the differences in bitterness ran with it. The same authors are honest about the limit of their own finding — the sensory panel told them glucosinolates and their breakdown products are not the only determinants of the flavour, and other compounds are probably involved. Which is the useful lesson for a cook: you can blanch a little of the bitterness out, but you cannot cook your way out of the bunch you bought.

Why this version works

The greens are cooked twice. A short boil in well-salted water, then a hard sauté in garlic oil. The boil takes the coarse edge off and, incidentally, leaches out some of the water-soluble glucosinolates that carry the bitterness; the sauté puts back the fat and the garlic and drives off the water the boil put in, so the greens do not flood the bread. Skip the boil and the sandwich is aggressive; skip the sauté and it is soggy.

Sharp provolone against bitter greens. This is the balance the sandwich is built on. Aged provolone is salty, lactic and faintly piquant — the standard at 21 CFR 133.181 allows a lipase-driven piquancy to be developed during that additional curing — and it is the only element with enough edge to stand next to the rabe. A mild provolone disappears; mozzarella turns the whole thing into a wet mistake.

Low oven, long time, no browning at the start. The shoulder is roasted at 325°F to an internal temperature around 185°F, which is well past done and exactly where the collagen has gone to gelatin but the muscle has not yet dried to floss. Searing it first would build a crust that has to be carved off anyway, because this pork is sliced thin across the grain and the crust would only tear the slices.

The jus is made of the roast, not added to it. Wine and stock in the pan from the start, the lid on for the first two hours, and the fat skimmed at the end give you a concentrated pork liquor that the slices are dropped back into. That warm bath is doing two jobs: it re-wets meat that has lost a third of its water, and it carries the garlic and fennel from the rub back into the middle of the slice, where the rub never reached.

Ingredient notes

Pork: Bone-in pork shoulder, four pounds, skin off and a good fat cap left on. It is the cut because it is the one that survives being cooked to 185°F, and because its grain runs in one direction long enough to give you slices the length of a roll. Loin is the common substitution and it is a downgrade: lean, dry by the time it is sliceable, and it needs the jus to do work the meat should be doing itself.

Provolone: Sharp, aged, cut thin at the counter. The federal standard is no help in choosing it, because it grades nothing and never uses the word — so ask for provolone piccante and, failing that, ask how long the wheel has hung. A well-aged one is straw-coloured and dry at the rind rather than white and rubbery.

Broccoli rabe: Two bunches, about a pound and a half, trimmed of the woody ends. The bitterness varies enormously between varieties and between seasons, and that is documented rather than imagined — the 2007 Phytochemistry survey of 113 Brassica rapa varieties found total glucosinolates varying by a factor of six or seven between them. Buy it with tight buds and no yellow. If the only bunches are flowering, they will be the sharpest of the year and the boil should go a minute longer.

Seasoning and roll: Garlic, rosemary, fennel seed, black pepper and a good deal of salt make the rub, and the fennel is the one that reads as Italian rather than merely as roast pork. The rolls are the same long, crisp-shelled Italian loaves the rest of the city's sandwiches use; six of them, and they should be firm enough to take a dip in the jus without collapsing.

Step by step

  1. Rub the pork a day ahead. Mash the garlic, rosemary, fennel seed, salt and pepper to a paste with 2 tablespoons of the oil. Score the fat cap in a diamond, rub the paste over every surface and into the scores, and leave the pork uncovered on a rack in the fridge overnight.
  2. Roast it covered. Heat the oven to 325°F. Set the pork fat up in a deep roasting tin, pour the wine and stock around it, cover tightly with foil and roast 2 hours.
  3. Uncover and finish. Take the foil off and roast a further 1 to 1½ hours, basting twice, until the pork reads 185°F at the thickest point and a fork turns easily in it. Rest it, loosely tented, 30 minutes.
  4. Make the jus. Pour the pan liquid into a jug and let the fat rise, 10 minutes. Skim it and reserve 2 tablespoons of the fat. Pour the liquid into a wide pan, boil it down to about 2 cups, and keep it hot.
  5. Cook the greens. Boil the rabe in a large pot of well-salted water 2 minutes, drain hard and press out the water. Heat the reserved pork fat and the rest of the oil in a wide pan with the sliced garlic and chilli flakes, and when the garlic is pale gold add the rabe and cook over high heat 4 to 5 minutes, until the water is gone and the edges have caught.
  6. Slice and dip. Carve the pork across the grain as thin as you can manage — a long knife and a slow hand. Slide the slices into the hot jus for 30 seconds, no longer, and lift them out dripping.
  7. Build them. Split each roll along one side, lay in the cheese, pile the pork straight on top so the heat starts it melting, then the greens, then a spoon of jus over the lot. Press the roll closed and cut it on an angle.
Dry pork means it came out under temperature rather than over it — at 175°F the collagen has not finished and the meat is both tough and thirsty. Put the slices in the jus, cover the pan and hold them over the lowest heat for five minutes; they will take up enough liquid to be good, though not what they would have been. If the greens have turned the sandwich bitter beyond enjoyment, the bunch was simply a sharp one; boil the next batch three minutes rather than two, salt the water like pasta water, and finish the pan with a teaspoon of the jus, which sweetens them more than lemon does. A roll that is falling apart was dipped rather than spooned — put the jus on the meat, not on the bread.

Storage and make-ahead

Sliced pork keeps 3 days in its own strained jus in a sealed box, and reheats better than almost any other roast because it is stored wet. Warm it in the liquid over low heat rather than in a microwave, which tightens the slices.

Cooked broccoli rabe keeps 3 days and is worth making extra of for its own sake. The pork freezes 2 months if it is frozen submerged in the jus; frozen dry it comes back stringy. Assembled sandwiches keep for about the length of a walk home.

What to serve with it

Sharp and vinegary rather than rich. Pickled long hots on the side, or a plate of giardiniera. If there is a vegetable it should be something plain and starchy to absorb the jus — roast potatoes with rosemary, or nothing at all. Red wine with grip: a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is the regionally honest choice and costs very little.

From the recipe box / Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Roast Pork with Broccoli Rabe and Sharp Provolone

Pork shoulder rubbed with garlic, rosemary and fennel, roasted slow, sliced thin and wetted with its own pan juice, then packed into a long roll with bitter greens and sharp provolone — the other Philadelphia sandwich, and the one the city's own agency says is exactly as old as the famous one.

Prep
30 min
Cook
3 hr 30 min
Total
4 hr 30 min, plus overnight
Serves
6
Calories
840 per sandwich

Ingredients

Scale

Instructions

  1. A day ahead, mash the garlic, rosemary, fennel, salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons oil to a paste, score the fat cap and rub it over the pork. Rest uncovered in the fridge overnight.
  2. Roast at 325°F, fat up, with the wine and stock in the tin and foil on tight, for 2 hours.
  3. Uncover and roast 1–1½ hours more, basting twice, to 185°F. Rest 30 minutes.
  4. Skim the pan liquid, reserving 2 tablespoons fat, and boil the liquid down to about 2 cups of jus.
  5. Boil the rabe 2 minutes in well-salted water, drain and press dry, then fry it hard 4–5 minutes in the reserved fat and remaining oil with the sliced garlic and chilli flakes.
  6. Carve the pork thin across the grain and dip the slices in the hot jus for 30 seconds.
  7. Fill each roll with cheese, then hot pork, then greens, spoon over a little jus, press and cut.

Nutrition

Fat42 g (15 g saturated)
Sodium1250 mg
Protein55 g
Serving1 sandwich
Calories840
Cholesterol120 mg
Carbohydrates52 g (6 g sugar, 5 g fiber)

Nutrition is an estimate calculated from the listed ingredients and is provided as a courtesy, not as dietary advice.

Questions readers ask

Do I have to dip the meat in the jus?

Yes, and briefly. Pork cooked to 185°F has given up a great deal of water, and thirty seconds in hot pan liquor puts enough back that the slices go soft rather than shredding under a bite. Longer than a minute and the slices start to fall apart and the bread gets the liquid instead of the meat. The one thing not to do is dip the roll — put the jus on the pork and spoon a little more over the finished pile.

What does sharp provolone actually mean?

Whatever the cheesemaker wants it to. The federal standard of identity at 21 CFR 133.181 sets provolone at a minimum 45 percent milkfat in the solids and a maximum 45 percent moisture, requires the stretched-curd process and a minimum sixty-day cure at 35°F or above for cheese made from unpasteurised milk, and allows smoking — and it sets no age classes and uses no word like sharp or piccante. So the label is trade language. Buy by asking how long it has hung, or by looking for a dry, deep-straw paste rather than a pale rubbery one.

Can I use spinach instead of broccoli rabe?

You can and plenty of shops do; it makes a milder, sweeter sandwich that is easier to like and less interesting. What you cannot do is use spinach and claim you have removed the bitterness from the rabe, because the bitterness is not a cooking artefact. Broccoli rabe is a Brassica rapa — the turnip species, not the broccoli one — and the 2007 Phytochemistry survey of 113 varieties of that species found total glucosinolate content varying by six or seven times between varieties, with bitterness tracking the variation. If you want it milder, boil it a minute longer in salted water and buy bunches with tight, unopened buds.

Is the roast pork older than the cheesesteak?

Nobody opened for this article says so, including the body usually quoted for it. Visit Philadelphia, the region's tourism agency, calls the roast pork as old as the cheesesteak but less known, and dates the cheesesteak to 1930 — the same year it gives for the riverside shack of the caterer it names in the roast pork's story. Philadelphia's municipal site refuses automated requests and the state newspaper archive did not answer at all, so no dated printing on either side could be tested. The two are contemporaries in the only account available, and this site says nothing stronger than that.