Mean Chef's Pulled Pork

From: Rooster 1

On May 5, 2008

My husband and I had our first annual Kentucky Derby party this past Saturday and I made this recipe - great reviews and a number of requests to forward on the recipe. I followed the recipe exactly and the meat was incredibly tender.

From: Chef #820926

On Apr 19, 2008

A so-so recipe, albeit all the up beat reviews. Real pulled pork requires, as in Carolina pulled pork, requires a great specific rub and a great specific sauce. Then comes time on a specially set up grill or smoker — a whole lot of time --to break down the collagen. This also requires moisture during the q. My final quest is to shorten the grill cook time while fully maintaining the smoke/spice flavor in a moist and very tender pull. This recipe helps with that...and that only.

From: Mille® ™

On Sep 20, 2002

This is fabulous (but you already knew that). Before I was hospitalized a year ago, one of my favourite restaurants was Hogs on The Hill near the University of Maryland campus. And one of their locally famous specialties was pulled pork – I could not get enough of the stuff, and often ordered extra to bring home and freeze. Of course, my low-salt diet put the brakes on my visiting that fine establishment. I had my local butcher call me when he got a fresh pig, and he cut me a huge pork butt from it. As soon as I got it home, I thought I heard it still oinking, so I took my wee butcher knife and stabbed it all over, just to make sure that it was dead. As I was rubbing it with your spice mixture (duplicated faithfully except for salt substitution) I poked some of the mix deep into the wounds that I had inflicted. Then, after overnight resting and subsequent re-rubbing, I slow-roasted it at 250°F for close to 9 hours. The beast was so tender that it almost “pulled” itself and fell into chunks as I was trying to lift it out of the roasting pan. The outside was almost charred, and yet it was glistening moist and had me nibbling on the burned bits as I was completing the “pulling” process. Your sauce was amazing. Because I had a large cut of meat to begin with, I had to make a second batch of sauce in order to have enough to be able to serve additional sauce. Even prior to making your sauce recipe, I have found myself using dates more and more in other savoury sauces – they really add oomph to it. My wife, who previously disliked most pork dishes, wanted me to make a point of awarding your recipe a whole bunch of frequent flier miles. She took pulled pork sandwiches to work for lunch 3 days in a row.

From: Steve_G

On Oct 14, 2002

Fantastic method and a great rub. With just the two of us it's hard to justify cooking a whole Boston Butt, so I did a 2 lb loil roast with the same method. I brined the meat in 1/2 cup of salt, 1 cup of sugar and 1 qt of cold water for 2 hrs, let the rub sit on for 4 hrs. I didn't bring it up to room temperature before putting it in the oven. It cooked for 4.5 hrs to an internal temperature of 198 degrees. It was fall-apart tender with tons of flavor! Thanks MC for a terrific recipe.