Pulled Pork

I'm a Southerner at heart even if I don't live below the Mason-Dixon Line, talk with a slow drawl, or closely follow NASCAR. I love BBQ, and in particular, I love pulled pork. Having finally gotten a crock pot, I got a good recipe from a coworker and set out to make some on my own. For those not familiar with pulled pork, you don't just make a little pulled pork. You shred an entire pork shoulder and make many pounds of it. It was really easy to make, but it takes all day to cook. While I enjoyed plenty of it on a bun and slathered in BBQ sauce, obviously some was set aside for deep frying the following night.

Here's the recipe I used:

5-6 lb. pork shoulder/pork butt
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 cup ketchup
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup tomato paste
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp mustard
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp garlic powder
pinch cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3/4 cup water

Place onion on the bottom of your slow cooker. Place pork shoulder, trimmed of any obvious excess fat, into slow cooker on top of onions. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all remaining ingredients to form the barbecue sauce. Feel free to adjust salt and pepper to taste, if necessary. Pour half of the sauce over the pork and cover. Set remaining sauce aside. Cook over low heat for about 8 hours (or according to your slow cooker's presets). Remove pork to a large bowl and shred with two forks. Transfer meat back into slow cooker and cook for a few more minutes, until meat has soaked up the sauce. Pulled pork can be held on the "warm" setting in the slow cooker for serving. Serve on soft sandwich rolls, topped with extra barbecue sauce.

The pulled pork was delicious, even though I forgot to add the brown sugar and was out of cayenne pepper. As an added bonus, the recipe left me with plenty of extra BBQ sauce to put on other stuff after the pulled pork was gone.

I wasn't too sure how well this was going to deep fry though, given the messy, runny nature of pulled pork. I also didn't initially know what type of batter to use. Bread crumbs didn't seem like they would contain a ball of pulled pork. Tempura or a beer batter didn't seem right either. And pancake batter seems much more suited to sweets. I though I had a good solution though: cornbread mix. I wouldn't simply coat it in egg and then dredge it through cornmeal though; I would make cornbread as if I were making hush puppies. Cornmeal mix is viscous and I figured that had the best chance of holding in a ball of pulled pork. And if it didn't work, hush puppies would go great with pulled pork regardless.

After making the mix, I experimented with some pieces of salami that were in the fridge, covering those in mix and frying until they looked done. (They obviously were not cooked quite enough, as you'll see in this next picture.) I also made a few plain hush puppies and fried some cubes of sharp cheddar. The salami didn't change much, and cheese was tasty, but not as good as mozzarella sticks.

I kept the pulled pork in the fridge. I'd thought about freezing some so I could shape them into balls more easily, but I just stuck with the fridge. I tried to ball up a little bit of pork tightly and surround it with corn meal mix, but this wasn't very easy or effective. I ended up with a ball of pork and cornmeal mix all jumbled up and dropped this into the fryer. What you see below was the result.

It didn't maintain its shape, but at least it all held together in one clump. It was not terrible, but deep frying didn't do the pulled pork any favors. It dried it out too much. If I'd been able to fully enclose it in within a hush puppy, that probably would have helped, but overall the pork starts out so succulent that it's a shame to fry off all that moisture.

Have you ever had a plate of nachos with pulled pork added? This reminded me of that. The pork still tastes good, but it seems out of its element — overheated and a little dry.

Hoping to redeem myself from that last experiment, I decided to go a little simpler and fry up a hush puppy, cut it in half, and use it as the bun for a pulled pork slider. The first hush puppy I made for this attempt turned out to be the perfect shape. It had a wonderfully rounded top, but a flat bottom, an ideal bun.I added some extra BBQ sauce to the slider.This was delicious and really felt like the way pulled pork should be enjoyed. Thinking back, it might be worth it to try deep frying pulled pork again using flour, egg, and breadcrumbs. While I initially worried about that coating not holding a ball of pulled pork together, I realized that in my one attempt deep frying macaroni and cheese, using the breadcrumb mixture created a nice mortar that I could use to ball up a small handful of elbow macaroni quite effectively. This might still dry out the pork too much, but maybe I can combat that by adding extra BBQ sauce.

I realize posts are getting more and more spread out, which is partially because I'm spending more time frying the really good stuff (mostly fish and mozzarella sticks) and less time experimenting. The Fry Gal and I will be welcoming another guest soon, however, who will be frying up some Asian cuisine with us. While the full menu isn't yet settled, I'm especially excited for the appetizers: crab rangoon and spring rolls.