Mean Chef's Pulled Pork

From: lolablitz

On Jun 15, 2009

Great recipe but I made two big mistakes making this that I'd like to share so other beginner cooks like me won't fall prey! 1. I've never made a rub and I had a 3.5 lb butt...that I covered with the entire rub...yep, slathered it on, let it sit, slathered another layer on...and then gooped the rest on right before popping it in the oven for good measure. This was a bad idea. This put too much salt onto the roast. But, other than having a very salty crust, the pulled pork was Very Excellent in 9 hours at 250 in the oven. 2. I've never made BBQ sauce - or reduced a sauce like this - so I had No Idea it would take 3 hours! I started the sauce about an hour before I thought the roast would be done, and planned to keep it covered when it finished! So, beginner chefs, take note: Rub your roast with the mixture once and leave it be! AND allow 3 hours to reduce the BBQ sauce

From: Valkyrie

On Jun 4, 2009

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.