Pulled Pork – I make my pulled pork by combining the dry rub and brine process from this recipe with the cooking steps at the end of this Guardian article.  

The combined recipe goes like this:

Grab a cheap pork shoulder roast (called a Boston Butt in the US).  Pak N’ Save often has 2kg roasts for $7 a kg.

Get out your spices and make up some dry rub mix as follows:

• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp onion powder (I skip this as I don’t have any)
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tbsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp ground pepper
• 1 tbsp paprika
• Generous sprinkle of dried chili flakes
• 1/2 cup brown sugar

Taste it – mmm, so intense.

Now we brine the pork.  Get a large pot and mix together:

• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3 tbsp dry rub mix
• 2 bay leaves
• Enough water to cover the pork, about 2 litres

Whack the pork in there, cover and put in the fridge for 8+ hours (while you’re at work, perhaps).

The cooking step takes about 7-8 hours, which is long enough that you can time it to happen overnight.  Otherwise the smell will make you real hungry all day 🙂

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.

Drain the pork and pat it dry with paper towels.  Sprinkle some dry rub mix into your roasting dish (if the dish has a lid, that’s handy).  Put the roast into the dish, fatty side up, and rub (duh) the dry rub mix into it real good (use about 3/4 of the remaining mix).

Cook it in the oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes so it can crisp up.  

Now turn down the heat to 125 degrees.  Put the lid on the roasting dish (foil works too) and cook it for about 6-7 hours or until the internal temperature is 89 degrees C.

Take the lid off and cook it for 10 minutes at 220 degrees to crisp up again

Take it out of the oven, put the lid on, leave for 30 minutes so it can rest

Now get two forks and rip it apart.  All the bones will come out easily.  Put the skin to one side.  Be gentle, you want some big chunks.  It’s easy to go too far and get mushy pork.  Put all the meat into a big plastic container. Sprinkle the rest of the dry rub in with the meat as you go. Chop up the skin on a chopping board, then add the juices and cut-up skin to the rest of the meat.  Mix gently and put it in the fridge overnight, then heat up portions to eat as needed.

Whew!  The recipe is a bit long-winded, but there is no tricky techniques and most of the timings (brining, slow-cooking, resting) are pretty forgiving.  It’s just so delicious and you get a TON of meat/meals out of it.

Pulled Pork BBQ Sauce

It’s delicious by itself, but you can also make special sauces to go with the pulled pork.  There are tons of different regional recipes.  I found this one was very easy to make, the main ingredients are apple cider vinegar, ketchup and mustard. I halved the recipe and the amount was about right for one batch of pork.