Spicy Pulled Pork with Potato Buns - The verdict!

Final update: Monday June 15th.

Pulled pork takes a long time to cook so if you're looking for something to make in a hurry, this isn't it!

This is a fairly large amount of sauce so you have some leeway with the size of roast you use, but I'd say between 1-4 pounds would be optimal.

It occurred to me today that this is the first time I have ever published a meat recipe. The meat in this case was purchased at the Union Square green market from a farmer who assures me he sells the best, tastiest and most humanely raised pigs in the market, I of course after an hour of searching have lost his card, so I'll come to back and give you his link when I find it.

This spicy, sweet, tomato based pulled pork goes great on these Potato Buns
- try using sweet potatoes or whole wheat flour.

Rinse a 2 -5 lb. pork butt or pork shoulder under running water then dry completely. Generously season with salt and pepper and set aside in a large bowl, covered, while you make the marinade.

and smashed, In the bowl of a large food processor add: 1 cup roughly chopped onions, 6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed, 4 Serrano chilies, stemmed and seeded (you can substitute Jalapeno), 4 T tomato paste, ½ cup raw organic cane sugar (like turbinado, or you can substitute brown sugar), 2 tsp. ground allspice, 2 T fresh thyme (just the leaves) 3 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp. cayenne pepper, 2 T dried Ancho pepper (ground into a powder: if you find a whole dried Ancho, de-seeded and grind in a coffee grinder or food processor), 2 T Dijon mustard, 2/3 cup apple cider vinegar.

Puree.

Pour puree over prepared pork butt and marinate overnight.

I'm off now to my friends Pam and George's place to make this using their grill. Here's how I see it going.

Make sure your meat is room tempterature (so take it out of the fridge 2-3 hours before).

Take the marinated roast out of the marinade and wipe the meat as clean as you can (n need to be too crazy about it)

Once the cools are hot and the embers glowing place the roast on the grill. Don't place it directly over a flame, cover and keep it slightly ventilated, after about 15 minutes, turn it over and cook for another 15 minutes.

I idea here is to infuse the pork butt with smoke and char it a little before finishing it in tin foil either in the oven or on the grill.

Prepare a cooking sheet by lining it with tin foil, double layer it, unless you are using the heavy industrial stuff, place some of the reserved marinade on it. Place the roast on the marinade, cover it with the remaining marinade and pull together the tin foil to create a sealed package.

At this point you can put it back on the grill, we cooked our 3 and a half pound roast another two hours, a total of 2 1/2 hours, it reached an internal temperature of 190 when we finally took it off the heat.

It was well cooked but did not shred, we chopped it.

At this point the grill was also losing heat and would have needed another batch of hot coals. The meat was steaming in it's own fat and juices and marinade, yummy, but it wasn't falling apart by any means, I'd say it could have cooked for another 2 hours, but was perfectly delicious as it was.

Mix the pork with the sauce the cooking marinade), place on a bun, serve with cole slaw. We ate it just on buns last night with lovely sauteed chard and an delicious asparagus vinaigrette George made.

The marinade is nicely spicy. George was saying he'd read a recipe where the pork was served with sauerkraut, sounds good! George also made a kick ass almond creme englaise over fresh strawberries with de stropple cookies.

At the end of the day I feel this is a recipe that is best started in the early morning, sear the meat, then wrap it in tin foil and cook for another hour or 2 on the grill until the heat starts to wane then finish it off in an oven at approximately 375 for another 2-3 hours or even longer.

Conversely you could do the whole thing in a crock pot and cook it for the 8 hours you are away at work.

BBQ season is here! Enjoy.