Thursday, March 12, 2009

Pulled Pork


This was my first time using a slow cooker and I am in LOVE! I still can't believe how easy it was to make pulled pork. I loosely followed Tyler Florence's recipe, but made some changes along the way (my recipe follows). All in all, pork is very forgiving if you don't have all of the ingredients. It gets soft like butter in the slow cooker.

Most recipes I looked up called for a pork butt, boston butt or pork tenderloin. I am not sure what a boston butt is, and my local supermarket only had pork picnic shoulder cut (aka pernil, in spanish). So that is what I used. It came in full size (about 6-8lbs) or half (about 3-4lbs). My 3.2lbs shoulder fed 3 adults and I have enough leftovers to feed 3 again.

Richa's Pulled Pork

Dry Rub

Chili Powder
Garlic Powder
Mustard Powder
Brown Sugar
Salt
Pepper

Mix all ingredients and "rub" on to a washed and patted dry pork shoulder.
Slice up one onion and spread it on the bottom of the slow cooker.
Set the pork shoulder on the onions.
Prepare sauce

Sauce

White Vinegar
Ketchup
Mustard
Chili Powder
Brown Sugar
Garlic Powder
Salt

I eye-balled everything, mixing and tasting along the way.
Whisk everything and pour on top of the pork.
Set the slow cooker on high, and leave it alone!
I left it for about 5 hours.


This is what it looked like after 5 hours in the cooker.


The meat just melted off the bone, with just a nudge of the fork...

Very little effort was needed to "pull" and shred the pork.
We enjoyed our pork in some whole wheat hamburger buns with a quick cole slaw -

Cole Slaw

Shred half a cabbage, 3 Carrots and 1 Red onion.
Make dressing by mixing Mayonnaise, Mustard, Vinegar, Salt, Pepper, Sugar.
Mix, chill and eat.

Hope you enjoy some pulled pork. Total prep time was about 15mins. Cooking time was 5 hours.