Buried in Pork

A week ago, hubby's friends came to visit for a little "ski trip" at Snoqualmie which is only 45 minutes away. After a few hours of skiing and a brief tubing session, we got back to the comfort of our home, simply relaxed and chatted. When they found out I had a blog, they asked if I cooked mostly Chinese food. While I denied it, I felt a little guilty that I've been posting mostly Chinese recipes. Maybe I HAVE been cooking more Chinese lately without even realizing it. =)

I seem to have a tendency of going to the extremes. To break the streak of Chinese cooking, I made a quintessential American dish - Pulled BBQ Pork, not on a grill, but in a slow cooker. It IS still winter after all. (We are even having a snow day today. *sigh*)

This is so easy that the most time consuming/labor intensive part of the recipe is shredding the roast. =) The 8-pound pork shoulder blade roast (Boston butt) yielded so much that it could feed an army. We'd probably still be eating this next month. (Yes, I did freeze most of it.) Next time, I'd try a smaller roast. Does anyone want some pulled pork?

Slow Cooked Pulled Pork

8 lb bone-in pork shoulder blade roast (about 7 lb 10 oz de-boned)
2 12-oz cans of light beer
4 small Spanish onions (about 14 oz), thinly sliced
BBQ sauce (about 2 ½ cups)

Lay half of the onion slices in a 7 qt slow cooker.

Remove the blade bone. Put the roast on top of the onions. Top with the rest of the onions. Pour the beer over the roast.

Cook on low for 10 hours, flip over half way through.

Take out the onions and the meat. Discard the cooking liquid. Shred the pork. Mix the onions and the pork with BBQ sauce. Put them back in the slow cooker, cook on low for 5 hours.

Mix with more BBQ sauce if desired. Serve in sandwich buns.

We are not an onion-loving household. The 14 oz of onions practically disappeared in the mounds of pork. Feel free to add more onions. I'd even consider topping the pork with caramelized onions.

For the BBQ sauce, you can use any brand you like. I made one based on Tomato Barbecue Sauce from The Gourmet Cookbook. It yields about 2 ½ cups. If you’d like more sauce on your pulled pork, try doubling it.

Barbecue Sauce
adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

1 cup tomato puree
¾ cup cider vinegar
⅓ cup Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp apple juice
3 tbsp unsweetened pineapple juice
3 tbsp packed brown sugar
1 tbsp dry mustard
1 ½ tsp salt
¾ tsp cayenne
½ tsp ground cinnamon

Stir together all ingredients in a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 5 minutes.