The Best Pulled Pork

There is something very satisfying about buying a piece of free range, local meat for a reasonable price and turning it into something tasty. This time it was the turn of the pork shoulder. I'm lucky enough to have a fantastic butchers (Westdene Butchers) near my work. They are so friendly, always willing to give you advice and are really reasonable. I'm really interested in butchery (Trevor is thinking about starting a course, yay!) so I love how they have the whole animal on site so I can get a cheeky look at what they're doing and can asked for the the meat to be cut exactly how I want, you don't get that with a supermarket!

This pork needs a bit of spice, some love and a long time in the oven! I served this in buns with homemade BBQ sauce, homemade coleslaw and corn on the cob. I got the spice rub recipe from here. Served 6.

What you need

Shoulder of pork (I got it with the bone still in to keep it from drying out and a decent amount of fat)
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons Essence, recipe follows1 tablespoon salt1 tablespoon cumin1 tablespoon paprika

Essence

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper1 tablespoon cayenne
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp dried leaf oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme



What you need to do

Place the pork in a baking dish. In a bowl, combine the sugar, Essence, salt, cumin, paprika, pepper, and cayenne. Rub the seasoning evenly over the pork to coat. The more you rub and massage the spices into the meat the better, show that meat some love! Cover with plastic and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.

Turn your oven on full wack. Cook the pork on full for 45 minutes then turn your oven right down to 125c and cook for roughly 10 hours, basting occasionally.

Test the meat after 10 hours; it's done when you can pull it apart with 2 forks. I then mixed the meat with the juices and a bit of my BBQ sauce and left it for 24 hours (a vital step according to the Americans!)

My BBQ sauce

My sauce was really tasty (after mellowing in the fridge for 24 hours) but a bit random as I made it up and didn't write it down! However there are loads of recipes on the internet BUT please, for the smoky goodness and for that dear little piggy, but chipotles in it. They are incredible!

My coleslaw

Finely slice a quarter of a white cabbge and the same of red and grate a carrot. Mix with yogurt, cayenne pepper, 1 tbsp of wholegrain mustard and a good dollop of mayonaise. Season to taste with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Eat as soon as you can!

Oh and sorry for the slight highlighting! Highlighted one thing then couldn't get it back to the original, hence whole post being slightly different colour-  very annoying!