Slow-cooked pork

Posted Fri 19 December 2008 By Dragon  | Category : food

Tags : pork /

 

Yup, more foodblogging. This one turned out fairly well. This is some really good slow-cooked shredded pork, good for pulled pork sandwiches and such.

Ingredients:

  • 1 pork shoulder (aka shoulder butt, or Boston butt) about 6 to 9 pounds. bone-in or boneless, it dosen't really matter (the bone just falls out after cooking so it's not hard to remove)
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock
  • 1/4 lb of Dundee Orange Marmalade
  • 1/4 lb Dundee ginger preserves
  • 2 -3 tbsp coarse-ground mustard (whole grain German brown mustard, or coarse-grain Dijon are good )
  • 2 medium onions, sliced
  • salt and pepper to taste

This is best made in a crock-pot. I used a 6 qt crock-pot and a 7 lb pork shoulder. It just barely fit. You can also use something like a Dutch oven. The trick is this needs to be cooked s-l-o-w-l-y for a long, long time. I use Dundee brand marmalade for this (it comes in a pretty recognizable white crock) as it's much better than most brands (it's made with real bitter oranges). The ginger preserves are less critical. I don't like my meat too sweet (some people put alot of sugar on pork), so the marmalade is good, as it's more balanced. If you like it a bit sweeter, you can add more marmalade/preserves.

Instructions:

Slice the onions and arrange on the bottom of the crock-pot. Put the pork shoulder in the crock, ontop of the onions, with the fat layer on top. in a measuring cup, mix the stock, marmalade, preserves and mustard. Stir it well to dissolve the marmalade and preserves. Pour the mix slowly over the top of the meat, and cover the crock-pot. Turn it on "High" for 1-2 hours, then turn it to "Low" and cook for at least 8-10 hours, (I leave it on overnight and while I'm at work the next day.) You really can't overcook this stuff. After it's cooked, don't even bother trying to lift the meat out of the crock, it'll just fall apart. Just pull out the bone if there is one, and shred with two forks. Add salt and pepper to taste.

If you are using a dutch oven, you can put it on the stove on med-low for an hour, then on low-as-it-goes for the rest (or if your dutch oven is oven-ready (i.e. a cast-iron one) you can put it in a 200-degree oven for the slow-cook.)