Pulled Pork

No - I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth. I was away again to a few conferences. No interesting food there. Just regular conference food-bleh! I came home dying for some real food and some juice. We juice everyday and whenever we go away I get this craving for juice. Is it my body crying out for fresh fruit and vege or is it just in my head? Then we had a party to go to over the weekend so that was more unhealthy food. I'm not sure that you can consider pulled pork a healthy food but at least it is homemade. We've had a spate of pleasantly comfortable weather, and I decided to take advantage of it and make pulled pork.

Beauty - eh?

Pulled Pork

4 - 4 1/2lb pork shoulder* (bone removed and reserved for future use in sauce)
1T cumin
2T brown sugar
2T smokey paprika
1t chili powder
1t garlic powder
olive oil

Mix dry ingredients together and rub into meat (both sides). Sort of fold it back up, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for several hours (ideally overnight). Remove plastic wrap and place on a rack in a large roasting pan. Rub skin with a little olive oil. Roast at 300 for 4 - 4 1/2 hours or until temperature reaches 190. A knife tip should be fairly easy to insert into meat. Let meat rest for 20 minutes. With two forks, shred meat. Serve with barbecue sauce on rolls (ideally, a soft roll - potato rolls while not healthy, will serve you well here).

This makes a lot of pulled pork. To reheat, place in shallow pan and sprinkle with water, cover with foil and place in 350 oven until warmed (about 20 minutes). Pulled pork also freezes pretty well. Since it is over 4lbs of pork, it is a bit much for just the two of us. Just make sure you put it in a real tight-sealing container. If there is any space in the container, cover the pork with plastic wrap.

You can use any sort of spice rub mixture that you like, but make sure that you let it really flavor the meat well by letting it sit overnight. As far as barbecue sauce, don't be lazy and use the bottled stuff. I mean you've invested the overnight rub time and at least 4 hours of cooking time. Treat yourself and make your own barbecue sauce (alas, that is a whole other post/story).


*I bought bone-in pork shoulder. I had the butcher remove the bone and cut it into 3 pieces so I can freeze it and use it for red sauce. You can also purchase boneless but I must say I prefer the bone-in. Firstly, because you get the bone. Secondly, it's not all tied up and you can season both sides much easier. You also definitely want the skin/fat cap on (can you say flavor??)