Pulled Pork



Being a full-blooded Yankee, I have no business talking about barbeque, let alone making it. To tell you the truth, I am slightly uneasy about writing this article, though I take some comfort in the fact that only other full-blooded yanks will be reading it. Here’s the thing: I love barbeque and it is hard to come by in Rhode Island. I have been driven to make it myself.

Or at least, a close approximation. The fact that my recipe for Carolina pulled pork, though taken from Sylvia’s Family Soul Food Cookbook, allows me to use (gasp) an oven rather than a pit would be considered sacrilege by many. The fact that I have gone and further messed things up by tainting that recipe with one from Epicurious.com substantially weakens my case, I know. I am left only with this admonition: Try it yourself before you judge too harshly.

You start with a pork shoulder. This cut, also called a Boston Butt or a picnic shoulder, is one of the cheapest pieces of meat you’ll ever buy. (So if you make it, take one bite, spit it out howling “This ain’t no BBQ!” and cursing my name, you’ll only have wasted five bucks.) On the pork, rub a mixture of coarse salt, ground pepper, brown sugar, cayenne, and paprika. Let it sit in the fridge for two or three hours.

I should probably mention now that making this recipe is easily an eight hour endeavor. If you don’t have time now, don’t worry – you can let the pork rest in the dry rub for a day or so. If you do have time, bring the pork back up to room temperature, then put it skin side up in a 350 degree oven for another two to three hours, or until very tender. I cannot stress this tender part enough. If you don’t let it get good and cooked, it’s going to be an awful bitch to pull apart, and that’s hard enough as it is. Resist Temptation. Let it cook.

Every 45 minutes or so, baste it with a mop of cider vinegar, water, Worcester sauce, vegetable oil, and pepper. The vinegar works away at tenderizing the meat - plus, it makes the house smell like you’re making barbeque, which in this case is a good thing. (The next day, on merit of smell alone, Jacob’s boss asked for the recipe.) When it gets down to the last hour of cooking, make the sauce, a concoction of apple sauce, ketchup, cider vinegar, salt, pepper, brown sugar, chili powder, and a chopped up onion that you simmer untill you need it for the pork.

When the butt comes out of the oven, the fun part begins. This part is for all you people who liked making mud pies as kids, and still get a kick out of mixing cookie dough with your bare hands. You shred, rip, split, cut, chop, hack, pull, and do otherwise until the entire hunk of meat is reduced to a pile of shards. This may take awhile. To amuse yourself, you could always play Leah’s favorite game, “Lean or Obscene,” in which tough decisions are made about questionable bits. This is not a genteel process. You will get messy. It is worth it.

Skim the fat off the pan juices, put the pulled pork back in, and pour the sauce over top. Mix it all up and bake it for yet another hour to really meld the flavors. Only then, at long last, is it done and you may relish the tangy, spicy, sweet, dare-I-say-smoky?, meltingly-tender goodness of this pseudo-Q. You say sacrilege? Maybe, but I think Homer Simpson put it best when he said “Sacrilicious.”


Ingredients:
1 5+ pound pork shoulder

For dry rub:
3 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
3 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons coarse salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

For the mop:
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon coarse salt
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

For the sauce:
1 cup applesauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 small onion, minced
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Directions
Make dry rub:
Mix first 5 ingredients in small bowl to blend.

Sprinkle dry rub all over pork; press into pork. Cover with plastic; refrigerate 2-3 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled.)

Make mop:
Mix first 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate.

Make sauce:
Mix all ingredients, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for at least 1 hour.

Bring pork to room temperature and then, in a large roasting pan, bake for 2-3 hours at 350. Bast with mop every 45 minutes. Let stand until cool enough to handle. Shred into bite-size pieces. Skim fat from pan juices and add pork back to pan. Pour sauce over pork, mix well, and return to oven for 1 hour.

Posted: Fri - December 19, 2003 at 01:38 PM      

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