Pulled Pork in Barbecue Sauce

There aren’t many dishes more moreish than this pulled pork and banging barbecue sauce. It’s a really great family meal and we often have as an alternative to a Sunday roast dinner.

We take out some of the pulled pork to have plain for my eldest daughter who doesn’t like the heat of the barbecue sauce.

There are many variations of side dishes for pulled pork, coriander rice, mash potato, spiced potato wedges and I could go on and on. We had the pulled pork here in a toasted brioche bun with my Healthy Coleslaw and buttered corn on the cob.

The pork does get a little attention with a dry rub and I do like to leave the meat in the rub overnight so the meat is full of flavour. If you are shorter on time or decide in the morning you want that for your evening meal, try to allow for at least an hour in the dry rub. I’ve done this before and it still makes my mouth water. I’ve also been told pulled pork is wonderful in a slow cooker but I’ve yet to try it that way.

The barbecue sauce is hot, sweet and sticky - everything a barbecue sauce should be. I blend it but you can leave it chunky too, it’s fab both ways.

The below was with a 1.5kg shoulder of pork and makes enough for 6-8 portions for a family of four so we have it two days running. 

Pulled Pork and Barbecue Sauce

Here’s how;

The dry rub;

• 1 tbsp mustard powder
• 1.5 tbsp paprika
• 2 tbsp salt
• 2 tbsp black pepper
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1.5kg shoulder pork

The barbecue sauce:

• Drizzle of olive oil
• 1 white onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 red chilli
• 1 tin tomatoes
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp chipotle paste
• Salt
• Pepper

Firstly in a bowl combine the dry rub ingredients. Add the pork to the bowl and use your hands to get the seasoning all over the edges of the pork and into any crevices where flesh or skin is. Then wash your hands and cover the bowl with clingfilm and place into the fridge overnight - or for as long as you are able.

Once ready to cook the meat, place the oven onto a low heat of 160 and place the pork into a baking tray or tin. Cover loosely all over with tin foil and place onto a middle shelf for 4 hours. Don’t use you best ceramic dish as this will get charred and messy.

For the barbecue sauce simple drizzle the olive oil into a saucepan and place on a low heat.

Peel and roughly chop the onion and garlic and add to the pan.

Slice the chilli (keeping the seeds) and place into the pan too.

Once this mixtuew has softened down a little add the tin of tomatoes, the chipotle paste, balsamic vinegar, honey and soy sauce. Season generously and stir and leave to cook for twenty to thirty minutes.

The barbecue sauce during cooking

Remove from the heat and allow to cool right down. Once cool blitz or blend - I use a Nutribullet so always allow it to cool right down.

When the meat has cooked for the full four hours, it should be super tender and easy to ‘pull’. To test, simply poke at it a bit with a fork and see if it is easy to shred. If not, return to the oven with the foil for a little longer.

Once the pork is out of the oven place onto a plate and allow to rest for twenty to thirty minutes.

Once resting time is up, any liquid that has escaped the pork, carefully place into the barbecue sauce, and pop the sauce back on a low simmer to warm through.

On a large chopping board, pull the pork by using two forks to shred the entire piece. 

Pulled pork

Once shredded, retain any you don’t want in the sauce then place the rest of the pulled pork into the barbecue sauce and stir through to ensure all of the meat is well coated. 

Pulled pork in barbecue sauce

Allow the pork to warm right through before serving with your choice of accompaniments. Enjoy!

Perfect Pulled Pork with Barbecue Sauce

Pulled pork has become very popular in the last few years on the London and general UK restaurant scene, and as with all things delicious, once I've enjoyed it out - I'm always looking to create my own version at home. I've played around with a ton of recipes and this is my absolute favourite version. It makes for unbelievably tender, melt in the mouth tasty pork and the bbq sauce just ups the ante even more.

I start with a dry rub and and have found that left for about two hours minimum gives the best result. If you can, try and leave overnight as all of the delicious, sweet and smoky flavours will really permeate into the meat. I must warn you, this is utterly addictive!

This can be served with a variety of accompaniments but my favourite way is slathered in a bun, with sweet potato wedges and some cooling slaw. Enjoy!

Pulled pork with barbecue sauce

The meat:
2.5kg shoulder of pork

The dry rub:
1.5 tbsp smoky paprika
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp garlic salt
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp muscovado sugar
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon

The barbecue sauce:
1 tin of chopped tomatoes or jar of passata
2 cloves of garlic
1 large onion
2 red chillies, seeds left in
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp runny honey
2 tbsp chipotle paste
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp muscavado sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper

Firstly combine all of the dry rub ingredients and then literally rub it all over every outside surface of the pork shoulder, ensuring every bit is covered, then place in an oven-proof dish or on tray, loosely cover and pop in the fridge.

Dry rub

Whilst the pork is marinating you can pull together your barbecue sauce. Firstly chop the onion and chillies and crush the garlic and add to a saucepan with a tablespoon of olive oil and pop on a low heat.

Once slightly softened, add the tomatoes or passata, soy sauce, honey, chipotle, red wine vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper and give a good stir to combine.

Barbecue sauce

Leave to slowly cook down for 30-40 minutes then remove from the heat and set aside until you need it later on. You can of course blitz this in a blender if you want a completely smooth sauce, but I tend not to bother.

Once ready to cook the meat, pop the oven on a low heat - around 150-160 degrees, and place the pork in the oven, still loosely covered with foil but not touching the meat.

Cook on this slow heat for 3.5-4 hours, checking every 30 minutes to make sure the outside isn't becoming too charred - although you are looking for crispy skin. For the last 20 minutes of cooking, remove the foil.

Although you are cooking for a long time, the meat shouldn't become dry as it has a good fat content which keeps it nice and moist - plus you are going to re-hydrate (or as the Americans call it - give it a mop) with the barbecue sauce. Leave it to rest and cool down for 15-20 minutes and then transfer it to a chopping board.

The pork before shredding

Now return the barbecue sauce to the heat to slowly warm through again.

With a knife and fork, shred the meat - this shouldn't be at all laborious as it should fall apart easily after all that time slow-cooking - if not it should probably go back into the over for 30 minutes and then re-test.

Once completely shredded, place into a serving dish and pour over the warmed barbecue sauce and gently stir through. You can re-heat at this point but it should be warm enough as is.

The pulled pork before the sauce is added

A London Lunch No. 3: Roast Hobbs Meat, Borough Market

Another day, another London lunch spot to rave about – this time at lovely Borough Market. I could talk about a different stall or outlet there every day, as there are literally so many delicious things on offer throughout the week and on a Thursday through to Saturday it is literally buzzing with people and is a great lunch spot for either a lazy Saturday morning or afternoon of browsing, or a happy countdown to the weekend lunch, as is often the case.

One place that I can thoroughly recommend a lunchtime saviour is Roast Hobbs Meat in the Bedale Street archway of the market. They serve a multitude of mouth watering meats, all served in either a baguette or a bread roll, and this makes for a seriously good Thursday or Friday lunch.

My particular recommendation is their BBQ Pulled Pork served with coleslaw – it is just divine. Slowly cooked, pork, flavoured and nicely coated in seriously smoky BBQ sauce and with a homemade, crunchy and fresh coleslaw all compressed together in a fresh piece of bread of your choice – what is not to like.

Oh and once again, this lunchtime lovely will only set you back a mere £4, will taste a damn sight better and will be far more satisfying than a bog-standard Pret or Eat sandwich.

Enjoy!

Pitt Cue - Barbecue Heaven

Pulled Pork Perfection

So once upon a time a metallic ‘burger van’ style BBQ eaterie, Pitt Cue, sat splendid over by the Southbank, ran by Tom Adams and serving ribs and pulled pork in as magnificent a way as is possible and so the ‘street food’ explosion began and continues.

Now Pitt Cue resides in a small little corner just off of Carnaby St in a restaurant, not so much street food, more diner-style in a very popular Soho location. As with so many venues in the ‘trendy’ food scene at the moment, reservations cannot be made to eat here, one must simply turn up and wait their turn - in a restaurant with only 30 covers this can be a lengthy process. Queues out of the door are a regular sight and I guess as with other similarly no-booking-policy venues, this only adds to the allure and makes the wannabe diner wonder what is so good to make people queue out of the door - and often for quite some time too.

I finally visited recently for the first time since the Newburgh St restaurant opened with my brother Dan, and a tip for not waiting too long is to go after the lunchtime rush and before the early evening stampede. We turned up around 3pm and waited just long enough to down a couple of drinks each, and eat a portion of the fantastic pork scratchings, which were lovely salty, crunchy and delicious things of culinary beauty (see attached image). Obviously pork scratchings are not to be eaten on a regular basis as they are certainly not the healthiest of things, and I’d dread to think of the fat-content, but my word as an occasional treat these were just phenomenal.

The place really is tiny, and when waiting in the bar area I particularly noticed the oddly old-fashioned net curtains, that adorn the windows and that I haven’t seen the like of for about twenty years, I guess this feeds into the Western theme but I can’t see it taking off too much on the London food scene (well I hope not anyway).

The bar serves an array of cocktails, but having been Pisco’d at Ceviche the weekend before, Dan and I opted for a beer and a ginger beer which were both: tasty, reasonable and refreshing.

Once seated in the downstairs area we quickly decided on our meal. You can either choose to have one of the Bun meals which includes the meat of your choice in some bread with pickles, which is the cheaper way to enjoy the food, but we opted for the Meat & a Side option which is also pretty reasonable.

We decided to get two different meals and share so we could try a bit of everything so we had the Pulled Pork and the Beef Rib mains with Bone Marrow Mash and Spicy Slaw as well as the pickles that come with each dish.

Beef Rib & Bone Marrow Mash

I literally don’t know where to start with detailing this food, it was mouth-wateringly delicious, all of it! I literally couldn’t find one single gripe or moan about the place. The pulled-pork, was tender, flavoursome and fell apart at the touch of the fork. The bone marrow mashed potato was creamy, earthy and a little bit on the greasy side, naughty but very, very nice and the spicy slaw was the perfect accompaniment to all as it had that gorgeous crunch with a slightly acidic, vinegary flavour and the beef ribs were just to-die-for. They fell off of the bone and had that charred, BBQ flavouring on the crispy coat, but had clearly been cooked over time to ensure tender, delicate meat. A chunky piece of crusty bread, also charred, came with both and was perfect for soaking up the meat juices.

The meals are served in metallic tins, not unlike the kind you’d imagine a grandparent preparing their roast joint in as a child, well for me anyway.

Pork Scratchings

Pitt Cue is a must for anyone who likes their meat, BBQ style food or just to stay ahead of the foodie pack and ensure you’ve been to all of the latest ‘on-trend’ places. The meal was a treat from my brother and came in at around the £50 mark, with a few drinks each. With the Bun meal options priced at only £6.50 this is a really affordable place to eat, particularly if you’re not drinking, and don’t mind a bit of a wait, although frankly if our meal was anything to go by, the wait, however long, will be worth it.