What is pulled pork Nathan? I hear you ask. Well, when you slow cook a big chunk of pork it pulls apart to delicious, moist, stringy pieces of meat which is great for such things as burritos - you can buy a pork 'carnitas' burrito at Mexicali Fresh. They are delicious.
My plan was to do a pulled pork sandwich or roll of sorts - and I recently discovered some very tasty Ciabatta rolls from the supermarket, so they seemed like a natural choice. They make a good portion size, and have a great texture and flavour. To match the pork I made a coleslaw for the roll, and served it with a balsamic tomato and bean side salad. It was pretty damned awesome, if I do say so.
WHAT.
Big cut of pork, you want shoulder or rump. I grabbed a cut about 800g (incl. fat)
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup ketchup (there's an awesome Tuimato sauce on sale in NZ now. Do it.)
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Big tblsp of mustard powder
About the same amount of garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika (used in Monday's recipe - definitely worth buying!!)
1/4 cup brown or raw sugar
Chilli flakes - to taste, I used about 1tsp which gave it a nice, mild spice
Salt, pepper, cooking oil (as usual)
White onion
Red onion
Half a cabbage
1 large, or 2 small carrots
Dijon mustard
Mayonnaise
Sour cream
Crushed pineapple - small can, about 250g I think
Cherry tomatoes
Round beans
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Ciabatta loaves
(Sorry for another shit pic, I tend to be doing this first thing in the morning so a bit all over the place!)
HOW.
First you want to remove the skin from your pork. Don't be afraid to keep a bit of fat, but the skin itself does not do well for slow cooking and will be a bit gross at the end. It's easy enough to trim off, and obviously try not to cut off any of the precious meat!
Next up, you guessed it - brown off the meat. Fire up your pan to full temp as usual. If you are unfortunate enough to have a ceramic cook top or you struggle with achieving maximum heat, then make sure you get your pan on early. Don't be afraid of it getting too hot, because obviously that won't be a problem! Don't forget to season the meat before it goes in the pan, and fry fat side down first.
The browning process will take at least 5 minutes, so you have time to cut up your white onion and half (of your half) of the cabbage (yes, that means a quarter of a whole cabbage). Don't worry about doing it finely, just rough cuts about half a cm all the way through. Dump the onion and the cabbage in the bottom of the crock pot. Once them meat has a bit of colour, throw that in too.
Next, combine all your wet ingredients except for the chicken stock into a cup. I have one of those measuring cups that allowed me to measure out the liquid. I don't bother measuring with dry ingredients, but I have found that cooking with the slow cooker retains a lot of liquid, so probably needs to be reasonably measured. Tuimato sauce, Worcestershire, apple cider vinegar (essential, don't use other kinds, especially not MALT.). Then add your spices and give it a good stir with a fork. Throw it over your pork / cabbage / onion.
The reason I didn't use the chicken stock in the original mix was so that I could put it into the mixing cup to help clean out all the good spices and flavours that might be stuck in there. Like so:
About a a cup. But you could definitely get away with less, this recipe will produce a lot of liquid at the end. Throw it all in to the pot - it will look like there is not enough liquid, but do not be tempted to add more. There is plenty.
Lid on. Cook for at least 10hrs. I think in the end I had it in for about 13! Owing to the fact that I had footy training and my flatmates wanted to wait for me. Good cunts. When you come back to it after 10hrs or so, your pork should still be in large chunks, but it will be really moist and soft. Just break it up with a fork and ensure it's stirred through the liquid entirely. Really get stuck into it. It should look a bit like this:
Coleslaw is EASY. This is a great recipe that is perfectly suited to this dish. Finely chop (as finely as you can) the other 1/4 cabbage and the red onion. Grate the carrot(s) into the mix. In a separate bowl add a large tblsp of the Dijon mustard, 2-3 tbslp of mayo, 1 big tblsp of sour cream (that's all I had left from Monday haha!), and about 2 level/small tblsp of the apple cider vinegar. AGAIN do not use a different kind of vinegar - it costs like $4 from the supermarket - buy some. Also drain the crushed pineapple and add it to the bowl. Stir it thoroughly and then dump it into the veges - stir that thoroughly and you have yourself an excellent coleslaw. Usually I wouldn't put pineapple in it, but it goes great with the pork, so take my advice damn it! It's fucking delicious.
The salad is even easier, and you can have it warm or cold. Cut the ends off your round beans. I could only find 'strawberry' tomatoes at the super which are a little larger than your average cherry tom, so had to cut them in half. Heat pan to a medium-high, add some olive oil this time (try not to let the pan get to max heat here, olive oil works better at slightly lower heat), then add your tomatoes and beans. After about 1min of cooking, add in a generous splash of balsamic vinegar. Just enough to coat everything in the pan. Cook off for another 1-2min, then put it in a serving bowl.
To serve, make sure you toast your ciabatta. It's just better. I fan grilled on max heat for a couple of minutes on each side. Too easy. When you're taking the pork from the cooker you WILL find that it has a lot of liquid - just use tongs or a draining spoon and let the majority of the liquid drain off. Be generous with the meat, this recipe could do 6 rolls. Spoon on some of the coleslaw, and top with the other half of the bun. Add some of your side salad, and serve with your favourite beer.
It may not look like much in the pic, but this meal was proper awesome. If you're going to repeat anything from this week's slow cook escapades, then I think this is the one. Great combination of flavours and textures. Consensus in the flat that this one was the best yet, and for a hearty, home cooked, winter meal I don't think you could ask for too much more.
9/10
(I'm hesitant to mark it that high, but I had to mark it relative to the others, so perhaps the others should be slightly lower!)
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