2010 Cooking Club Week 48: Pulled Pork

Mr Magnolia · 04-12-2010 12:25pm

Back to the drawing board for me. The pork dried out overnight so it's in the bin. I've people calling this afternoon so there's a chilli going on instead.

Magic Monkey · 04-12-2010 12:27pm

Sparks wrote: »

Wait until you actually taste it
Though I keep thinking it could be better - if I could find some liquid smoke, I'd put some in the cooking liquid; or if I could just build a smoker... *sigh*

Le Palais Des Thés on Wicklow St. sell a strong Lapsang Souchon tea that has an incredible smokey aroma. Maybe it could be added to the marinade or the cooking liquor to get that smoky flavour?

Dinkie · 04-12-2010 1:00pm

Magic Monkey wrote: »

Le Palais Des Thés on Wicklow St. sell a strong Lapsang Souchon tea that has an incredible smokey aroma. Maybe it could be added to the marinade or the cooking liquor to get that smoky flavour?

You can buy a hickory liquid smoke on the internet. I can't find the name of the place I bought it from, but if you google there are a few sites.

(also use the hickory liquid smoke for bbq'ing).

Sparks · 04-12-2010 1:26pm

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

The pork dried out overnight so it's in the bin.

How on earth did it dry out?

Mr Magnolia · 04-12-2010 1:35pm

Haven't got a scooby-doo. There was still some of the cooking fluids in the dish but the pork was very dry.

Sparks · 04-12-2010 1:42pm

Okay, that's flat-out wierd, none of the cooking liquid should have evaporated. You can try to fix it - add more coke to top up the liquid and run the slow cooker for the day and see how it progresses - but I'm at a loss about the missing liquid, it just shouldn't have vanished like that, the cooker doesn't produce enough heat to boil it and the lid keeps any steam in the pot!

psycho-hope · 04-12-2010 6:10pm

well cooked the pork over night and just had some now. was lovely took about 12 hrs to get to the falling apart stage. I used about a can of coke, couldnt get mollases so honey it was and red wine vinegar instead of the cider vinegar. will definatly be making it again, just might half the amout of chilli next time for me there was to much of a kick

thanks again Sparks

12-12-2010 10:35pm

Picked up the slow cooker last week. Gf picking up the items tomorrow from the shop. Most are available in Tesco I assume from the pictures?

And nam pla is just fish sauce yeah?

Sparks · 13-12-2010 9:48am

Dónal wrote: »

Picked up the slow cooker last week. Gf picking up the items tomorrow from the shop. Most are available in Tesco I assume from the pictures?

Yup. I picked up everything in the photos (bar some of the spice that I already had, but they're in Tesco as well) because pulled pork is meant to be poor people's food, so you pick the most used source to find your supplies, rather than somewhere esoteric (granted, the chilli recipe was poor people food too but needed an ingredient we consider esoteric - chipotle chillis in adobo sauce - but where the dish was from, that was as esoteric as ketchup).

And nam pla is just fish sauce yeah?

Thai fish sauce, yes. If you can't find it, you could just use twice as much worstershire, but I think it's better with the nam pla.

nice1franko · 13-12-2010 10:42am

I made this last night. I used to have a slow cooker but it broke earlier in the year so I thought I'd have a go with a cast iron pot. The rational being:

a) my cooker says the lowest it can go is 50c so maybe it's a little better at handling lower heats that the ones sparks has used
and
b) the cast iron pot kind of stabilises the heat a bit

So I put the oven on at about 75c and I checked both the oven and inside the pot with a probe 3 or 4 times within the first few hours hour and sure enough it was circa 70c each time. This morn I checked again- same.

It was in for about 10 hours altogether and all the cooking fluid was still in the pot and the pork is lovely n tender.

Flavour-wise, I think I overdid it with the black strap mollasses a bit (first time I ever used this) because there's a liquoricey tang which doesn't taste right. Anyway, I drained off all the liquid and once I do the bbq sauce hopefully it'll balance it out.

Soft floury baps with pulled BBQ pork, coleslaw and pickles this eve

Sparks · 13-12-2010 11:33am

Nice one. The cast iron pot was what saved you though I think - it has the effect of smoothing out the oven's temperature cycling (hooray for cast iron's specific heat capacity!). Nice to see it came out well (even if you had a bit too much molasses - you have to watch it with the black strap stuff, you can go a bit wilder with the fancy molasses stuff, but you don't see it on the shelves so much over here, and to be honest, I prefer the taste of the cheaper black strap stuff

And excellent choice with the pickles

pickarooney · 14-12-2010 1:05pm

I so want to make this but I can't find a crock pot for under 120 euros. Or black strap molasses for that matter, but that's a lesser concern.

I don't know if an electric tajine pot would serve the same purpose.

Sparks · 14-12-2010 1:11pm

120 euro???
Where the heck are you looking?
Argos have one for 15 euro and Tesco for 22 euro.

pickarooney · 14-12-2010 4:38pm

Sparks wrote: »

120 euro???
Where the heck are you looking?

In France

Digging around on eBay now but am not sure if I'm looking at the right things. Product specs are thin on the ground.

http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=250737392697
http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330506572205
http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360325715704

Sparks · 14-12-2010 4:44pm

pickarooney wrote: »

In France

Ah!

But still...

Digging around on eBay now but am not sure if I'm looking at the right things. Product specs are thin on the ground.
http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=250737392697

Doesn't open for me for some reason.

http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330506572205

Yup, that's one.

http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360325715704

Yup, that's one too.

Also search for "mijoteuse" or "mijoteur".

Kenny_D · 14-12-2010 8:44pm

Would pork belly be any good for this recipe? Have a piece of it there in the fridge but can do roasted chinese belly pork if its not really suitable

Sparks · 15-12-2010 2:31am

Don't think it'd work really, this dish works by converting the collagen in the connective tissue to gelatin; there's none to convert in pork belly. You'd render out all the fat and end up with a little overcooked meat covered in too much grease. Awful thing to do to something as useful and tasty as pork belly...

Little Alex · 18-12-2010 11:12pm

Just bought myself a slow cooker today for this recipe and some other stuff I want to try out. Argos have some great deals at the moment: I got a 3.5l Breville model for €20!

19-12-2010 8:53pm

So I've got everything but the squeezy tubes of Coriander & Ginger. Checked two Tescos (Rathmines & Lucan) and no go. Was in Dunnes in Rathmines too, same. I do have the granules of them though, would they do?

Sparks · 19-12-2010 11:11pm

Yup, though if you're using ground ginger, just put a half-teaspoon into the spice mix. As to coriander, fresh is nicer, but dried will do fine, just make sure it has enough time to rehydrate in the liquid before eating.
The squeezee tubes are for convenience, nothing else. Fresh is better quality if you want to take the time; dried will do if you haven't got fresh. Squeezee tubes are sort of a balance point between the two.

Little Alex · 20-12-2010 11:51pm

We slow-cooked the pork yesterday and had a couple of these pulled pork sandwiches for dinner this evening.

Sloppy and delicious!

picture.php?albumid=1409&pictureid=8221

I'm off to floss now!

20-12-2010 11:54pm

Day 1 complete, pig is in the fridge.

It's difficult to put into words how much I'm looking forward to this on Wednesday.

Sparks · 21-12-2010 12:24am

Little Alex wrote: »

Excellent, glad you liked it!

I'm off to floss now!

No! Don't do that! You're saving some for later!

22-12-2010 6:14pm

Nom.

Sparks · 22-12-2010 6:22pm

Excellent. I'm currently looking at a boojums burrito with a pulled pork filling, which shall be sampled for comparison purposes. I have high hopes for my recipe though

23-12-2010 3:16pm

Pic below was pre-party, the pork went down a treat last night, not even scraps left! I did two bowls of it, one with the bbq sauce and one without, reason being that the one without was coeliac friendly. Will have to source non-wheat-based bbq sauce for the next run.

Will definitely be doing this again. Similar to another poster earlier, when I cooked it overnight on Tuesday night I smelt a small bit of burning coming from the slow cooker. The fluid had dried out a bit and caked the top of the cooker, so that was burnt after around 6 hours at High. I topped it up with coke, turned it down to Low for another 2 hours and it was grand.

Sparks · 23-12-2010 3:37pm

Sparks wrote: »

Excellent. I'm currently looking at a boojums burrito with a pulled pork filling, which shall be sampled for comparison purposes. I have high hopes for my recipe though

Those hopes, it turns out, were well-placed. Boojums' pulled pork is at best okay. My recipe is far better, even if I do say so myself

(I'm quite chuffed at that now...)

Dónal wrote: »

Similar to another poster earlier, when I cooked it overnight on Tuesday night I smelt a small bit of burning coming from the slow cooker. The fluid had dried out a bit and caked the top of the cooker, so that was burnt after around 6 hours at High. I topped it up with coke, turned it down to Low for another 2 hours and it was grand.

I guess there's a "Your slow cooker settings may vary" warning that should get drafted and attached to the recipe. I know that for the argos cooker in the photos above, you have to cook on high (cooking on low doesn't get it done at all), but for a larger, beefier model, cooking on high for more than four hours might be excessive

nice1franko · 23-12-2010 4:07pm

nice1franko wrote: »

...
Soft floury baps with pulled BBQ pork, coleslaw and pickles this eve

Forgot to post pics:

Delishcus.

aN.Droid · 27-12-2010 4:36am

My god that looks fantastic. One question though, for the lad on a budget how much would this set you back :P I cook for me and 2 others and don't usually like to go over a fiver each but i might for this it looks unbelievable and also I'm a sucker for BBQ sauce :P

first post in cooking & recipes I should of came in here a long time ago instead of cooking my half assed recipes haha. Thanks OP!

Sparks · 27-12-2010 3:21pm

Limericks wrote: »

My god that looks fantastic. One question though, for the lad on a budget how much would this set you back :P

Hard to say since it depends on what you have to hand!
Put it this way, I break my kitchen budget into CapEx, long term consumables and short term consumables. Short term consumables means what's getting used for this meal alone; in this case that comes to about €6-7 for the pork and anywhere from €1 to €4 for BBQ sauce depending on what kind you buy. Add in, say €3 more for some garlic, an onion and a chilli, and that's all the short-term stuff, so whatever the first time you do this costs, the second time will only cost you between €10 and €15 or so, and it feeds a fair few people for a fair few days, so it's quite cheap after the first time round.

The long term consumables for me means stuff that lasts across several meals and which get used in more than one recipe; so that's salt, spices, oils, vinegars and so on. There are a fair few of those in here, and how many you have to buy depends on your cupboard's stocking levels. It could get a bit expensive: as much as €38 if you have absolutely nothing (and I mean nothing, not even salt).

The capex is for kitchen equipment; in this case, that's a slow cooker unless you already have one - so €15 in argos or €22 in Tesco.

So your overall bill will be somewhere between €10 and €75!

Here's a Tesco shopping list for everything bar the Nam Pla (couldn't find it on tesco.ie, it's usually €2 or so) and the slow cooker (same story, prices above):

Product|Price|
Tesco Garlic Puree 115G | €1.99|
Tesco Zesty Ginger Blend 75G |€1.99|
Green Chillies 50G Class 1 |€0.69|
Extra Large Onions Each Class 2 |€0.99|
Tesco Garlic Each |€0.79|
Tesco Fresh Porkmedium Leg Joint |€5.19|
Coca Cola Regular 2 Litre Bottle |€1.99|
Kelkin B/Strap Molasses454g |€3.29|
Lea And Perrins Worcestershire Sauce 290Ml |€2.19|
Aspall Cyder Vinegar 500Ml |€1.99|
Tesco Onion Granules 58G |€1.34|
Tesco Mild Curry Powder 80G |€1.09|
Tesco Ingredientspanish Smoked Paprika 50G |€2.99|
Tesco Paprika 52G |€0.80|
Tesco Ground Cumin 43G |€1.05|
Tesco Dried Coriander Leaf 8G |€0.75|
Tesco Hot Chilli Powder 50G |€0.69|
Schwartz Cayenne Pepper 26G Jar |€1.99|
Saxa Fine Sea Salt 350G |€1.39|
Goodalls Thyme 25G |€1.99|
Lakeshore Sticky Hickory Barbeque Sauce 275G |€2.95|
Total|€38.13|

Thanks OP!

No worries!

2010 Cooking Club Week 48: Pulled Pork

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