Pulled pork

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp salt
• 3 tbsp raw sugar or brown sugar
• 3 tbsp ground cumin
• 3 tbsp coriander powder
• 2 tbsp dried rosemary
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp curry
• 1 tbsp cayenne pepper
• 0.5 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 kg pork shoulder or neck
• 50 ml yellow mustard, or half a tube
• 200 ml BBQ sauce, or half a bottle, or 250 g

Preparation

1. Mix salt and spices together in a bowl.
2. Cover meat in mustard, then cover with spices.
3. Tightly wrap the meat in cellophane, and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.
4. Preheat oven at 110ºC with fans and top/bottom heating.
5. Put meat on a grill, with something under it to collect the dripping fat.
6. Cook meat until internal temperature is 92ºC, roughly 7 hours for 1 kg of meat.
7. Take the meat out of the oven, rest it in its juice, loosely cover it with tinfoil, and let it rest for around 20 minutes.
8. Pull apart with forks, and mix half a bottle of BBQ sauce into the meat.
9. Serve on burger buns with pickles and coleslaw, put in a quesadilla, or eat right out of the fridge like an animal.

This is a very easy pulled pork recipe, but it’s absolutely delicious. I can’t stop picking bits of it directly from the fridge. It’s very similar to the original recipe (in German). For the BBQ sauce, I use regular HP sauce, or Jim Beam Smoky Barrel. Both can be found in European supermarkets.

A few notes about making pulled pork:

• Letting the meat rest is a test of your patience, but it’s worth it¹. This lets the fibres relax and absorb the juices back in, making it juicier and more flavourful.
• Pulled meat should be cooked well done¹. This is not an error.