If you travel around the states for any length of time, one day you could end up in North Carolina. North Carolina is the home of pulled pork, it is a little fuzzy as to if it was invented there or that they adopted it and called their own. Either way, if you want the best pulled pork you need to cook it like they do in North Carolina. If you are a sports person then you know of North Carolina as a basketball state, tar heels, blue devils or wolfpack.

Cooking Ingredients and Details:

It is a little funny that when you make pulled pork that you use a cut of pork called Boston Butt (bone-in pork shoulder roast-5 to 7 lbs.).

About 4 tablespoons of barbecue rub
Rub Ingredients: 1/4 brown sugar
1/4 paprika (sweet or hot or combo)
3 tablespoons black pepper
4 tablespoons of course sea salt
2 teaspoons of garlic powder
2 teaspoons of onion powder
2 teaspoons of celery seeds
1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper (hot)
Mix these ingredients together and store in an airtight jar for use up to 6 months.

Put a very thin coat of olive oil on the butt, then sprinkle the barbecue rub and coat all sides of butt and let stand covered in refrigerator for up to 24 hrs. The longer the better as the flavor gets richer with time.

You are going to need what's called Mop Sauce:
1 cup cider vinegar
1 small onion, finely sliced
1 or 2 jalapeño peppers, finely sliced
1 tablespoon course sea salt
Mix above ingredients together and let it meld together next to the butt at the same time. When ready to use add 1/2 cup of water to mix.

Best to smoke the butt that way it cooks slowly in indirect heat and you can throw soaked hickory wood chips on the coals to get that deep smoked flavor. Cooking time should be 4-6 hrs. And the internal temperature should reach 195 degrees to be done. Every 45 minutes brush the mop sauce on the butt to keep the meat nice and moist. During cooking you want to turn the butt so that each side cooks evenly.

When cooking is completed let the butt stand in a large pan for 15-20 minutes. Put on insulated rubber gloves and pull the pork from the bone and separate from the fat. The meat should be in strands and in a pan, next you need to make North Carolina vinegar sauce:
2 cups cider vinegar
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons brown sugar
4 teaspoons course sea salt
1 tablespoon hot sauce (your choice)
1-2 teaspoons hot red pepper flakes
1-2 teaspoons black pepper
You can put the mixed ingredients above into an air tight jar and refrigerate for up to 3 months use.

Take the vinegar sauce above and splash on the shredded butt in the pan and cover with aluminum foil and keep warm in oven (not too hot you don't want to cook). (If you want the meat to taste even better, you can take the skin that is burnt and finely chop it and add to the meat and mix thoroughly, then splash the vinegar sauce prior to keeping warm).

Serving options: you can pile meat on a hamburger bun and eat like it is a sloppy Joe or with a side of baked beans.
MMMM - makes my mouth water just thinking about this delicious recipe. This will be a lot of food so if you are single, you can portion into individual servings and freeze for easy meals later.

I have to confess this recipe is a knock off from The Grill Master - Steven Raichlen, never met the guy but from his book How to Grill; he sounds like he is really cool and definitely knows his stuff.

F. Allen Putt
July 4, 2008

Source: http://www.successfulcookingfroma-z.com

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