Pulled pork in the oven
Pulled pork is a nice barbecue recipe, but what to do when you don’t have a BBQ grill and an open space where to show off your grilling talents? Roasting the pork butt will eventually tenderize it and make the meat pull apart, so this is a good alternative to outdoor cooking.
Ingredients:
- 1 pork butt or shoulder, about 4-5 lbs weight
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed
- 2 onions, peeled, chopped
- 1 tablespoon vinegar (apple cider is the best)
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tablespoon liquid smoke
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Any barbecue sauce of your choice (homemade is always nicer, but if you’re short on time, you can buy the sauce)
Ingredients for the rub:
- 3 tablespoons salt
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons paprika
- 1 tablespoon red chili powder
- 1 tablespoon green chili powder
- 3 tablespoons dried thyme
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons onion powder
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time 8-10 hours
Serves: 6-8 people
How to cook it:
Prepare the dry rub by mixing all ingredients in a bowl. Rub the meat thoroughly on all sides. If you want, you can first coat the meat in a thin layer of yellow mustard, so the rub will get a better adherence, but it’s not a must. Then put the pork shoulder in a roasting dish, add all other ingredients and roast it in the oven for 8-10 hours, making sure to take a look at it every hour or so. If it becomes too dry, you may want to baste it with some juice from the dish, or you can even add 1-2 cups of water. Don’t forget to check the interior temperature with a probe thermometer, so you make sure you cook it safely, with no risk of getting infected with salmonella or trichinosis. If your thermometer reads at least 165 F you are safe. When the meat is done, get it out of the oven and let it rest for a few minutes, then pull it using two forks, as usual. Serve the pulled pork meat in hamburger buns, French baguettes, rolls or taco shells or in any other way you like. This pulled pork recipe goes very well with various salads such as cabbage and carrot salad, pickles salad, tomatoes, cucumbers and onions salad.
Pulled pork pressure cooker recipe
This is another pulled pork recipe for barbecue lovers who can’t go to picnic so often or who don’t have a backyard. One of the advantages of using a pressure cooker is that the cooking time is significantly reduced. This is possible because the higher the pressure, the higher the boiling point of water gets. When we boil something in a regular pot, the maximum temperature we can reach is 212F, no matter how big we set the fire to be. When boiling in pressurized environment, the water boiling point becomes higher, thus the foods in it will be cooked at higher temperatures, thus needing less time to be ready. Recipes with long cooking times benefit a lot from pressure cookers.
Ingredients:
- 1 pork butt or shoulder, about 4-6 lbs weight
- 1/2 tablespoon liquid smoke
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed (or garlic powder)
- 1 tablespoon vinegar (apple cider is the best)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Barbecue sauce or any other sauce you like
Ingredients for the rub:
- 3 tablespoons salt
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons freshly ground pepper mix of black pepper, Cayenne pepper and white pepper
- 2 tablespoons paprika
- 1 tablespoon red hot chili powder (if you like the food a bit hot; otherwise don’t put this in the rub)
- 3 tablespoons dried thyme
- 3 tablespoons ground cumin
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time 3-4 hours
Serves: 8-10 people
How to cook it:
Combine all ingredients for the rub, mix them well, then rub the pork shoulder with it and let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours. Then you can either roast the pork shoulder in the oven for about two hours, or you can fry it in the pressure cooker with a little oil sprinkled all over the meat. When it starts to steam, let it cool, then add the liquid smoke, the crushed garlic, the vinegar and two cups of water, then set the fire on high until the pressure cooker starts steaming. In this moment, make the fire low and let the food cook for one hour and a half. Then let the cooker cool and check the meat. If you like its tenderness, you’re done. If not, add two cups of water and cook it for one more hour. When ready, let the meat cool a little, then pull it apart with two forks. Serve it in buns, make sandwiches, make tacos or simply put it on a plate with some nice side dish and enjoy.
Pulled pork sandwiches with homemade BBQ sauce
Sandwiches are one of the most popular ways of eating pulled pork. They are very easy to prepare, either using hamburger buns or mini French breads. Other ingredients that could go into such sandwiches can be anything you like and you think goes well with pork meat. Here’s a pulled pork recipe that uses homemade BBQ sauce, because homemade always tastes better.
Ingredients:
- 2 lbs pulled pork meat
- 8 hamburger buns or French mini-baguettes
Ingredients for the barbecue sauce:
- 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 2 cups tomato sauce
- 1 teaspoon red pepper (Cayenne), ground coarsely
- 1 small onion, minced
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 teaspoon paprika or hot chili powder
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tablespoon virgin olive oil
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes (the BBQ sauce needs simmering for about 20 minutes; the recipe assumes that you already have the pulled pork meat)
Serves: 8
Cooking procedure:
First, you want to make the BBQ sauce, so you can take care of the rest while it is simmering. In a frying pan, heat the oil, then cook the onion and the garlic for 2-3 minutes, until they start to get some color. Add the rest of the sauce ingredients, then let the mix simmer for 20 minutes, stirring from time to time. Meanwhile, pull the meat apart with two forks, adding a teaspoon of the hot barbecue sauce if you think it needs more moisture. When ready, pour the sauce over the pulled pork meat, then fill the hamburger buns or mini-breads. Serve immediately, with the remaining sauce as a side dish and with some season salad.
