I’m a huge BBQ guy. As a
kid, I had been to summer BBQ’s, pig roasts and always loved the BBQ rib sub
for school lunch, which later I realized was pretty much trademarked as the
McRib® by Mickey D’s. But then I found out what true BBQ was!
In college I dated a girl with family out in Texas. I took a trip
to the lone star state and after getting a taste of Texas BBQ, my eyes were
opened to what I had been missing. Smoked brisket, pulled pork, beef ribs, pork
ribs, dry rubs and sauces; I was in BBQ heaven. Rarely do I come across a place
with the same amazing flavors produced by hours of careful monitoring and
babying of every square inch of the grill. The only exception I have found in
the Boston area so far is a personal favorite in Brookline, Village Smokehouse.
Its close, but not quite the same as Texas BBQ. So, similar to many things in
life, if they can’t get it right, you have to do it yourself! Hence, I give you
my spicy BBQ pulled pork recipe. Fair warning; this takes at least 16+ hours.
If you have a smoker, you can get the perfect smoky flavor of a smokehouse as
well. If not, you will still have some killer BBQ pulled pork!
What you need:
Crockpot
Additional Tools:
Smoker (optional)
Ingredients:
5-8 lbs pork butt or pork shoulder, 6oz of cola, ¼ c. Worcestershire
sauce, 1 large onion, 8 cloves of garlic, 20 oz. favorite BBQ sauce, 1-2 hot
peppers (optional), 1 T. salt, 1 T. pepper, ¼ c. yellow mustard or brown
mustard, 1/4 c. brown sugar, 3 T. paprika, 1 t. chili powder
Directions:
The preparation is pretty easy here. Most of the time is in
cooking and you can prep the night before. Store your pre-filled crock in the
fridge over night if you don’t want to do this first thing in the morning and
let it cook all day while you are off doing whatever you need to do.
In a bowl, mix paprika, black pepper, salt and chili powder. This
is your dry rub. Completely cover your pork with all of the mixture. Don’t be
afraid to get dirty, its going to happen. Clean your hands off and open the
bottle of mustard. If you don’t have squeeze bottles, spoon about a ¼ cup of
mustard into a bowl. Squeeze or spoon the mustard all over the pork. Cover the
entire piece of meat. When you have finished you should see nothing but red and
yellow. Take the pork and set it into your crockpot fat side up. Finely dice up
the onion and add the cloves of garlic. A red, yellow or white onion is fine (I
prefer red). Toss the onion and garlic into the crockpot around the meat. If
you like it spicy, also add one or two small hot peppers (I usually use one
habanero). You need about 20 ounces of your favorite BBQ sauce added to the
crockpot. Add the Worcestershire sauce and then top off the pork with the cola.
Why cola you ask? The acidity of the cola helps break down the meat and the
caramel/sugar adds a nice sweet flavor to the pulled pork.
If you are done and it is 5:30 in the morning, well done,
you are clearly a morning person! Otherwise, put the lid on the crock and toss
it into the fridge. The timing comes down to your schedule. I prefer to prep in
the afternoon and put the crock into the fridge. Around 11 or midnight, Ill put
the crock into its holder; turn it to low, and let cook for about 8-10 hours
(depending on the size of pork used). At
this point your kitchen smells like heaven and you want to devour the entire
pot.
If you have a smoker, take the meat out of the pot (it will most likely be
in a few big pieces) and put it into a metal bowl (disposable is best, the bowl
will be covered in soot). Leave the sauce in the crock. Smoke the meat for
about 2 hours, and then return it to the crockpot.
If you don’t have a smoker,
skip to here. Remove any bones from your meat (usually pork shoulders and butts
have 2 big bones and 1-2 small pieces). While the pork sits in the sauces, take
2 large forks and start to pull the pork apart. This should be very easy and
all the meat will take about 5-7 minutes to pull apart. Mix the meat with the
sauce and let sit for another 20 minutes on low. If you like a more saucy pork,
add more to your taste now. Take a second to wipe the drool off the side of
your face, grab a big toasted bulky roll and some coleslaw, pile on an absurd
amount of pulled pork and enjoy! Cheers!
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