Last week my Mum sent me a newspaper clipping of a recipe for pulled pork, and on Friday night I won a $20 meat voucher at the Servies raffle, so I decided it had to be done.

Here’s the recipe from Maggie Cooper’s Weekend Cook column in the Northern Star (with my modifications added):

Ingredients:

Dry Rub (enough for a few roasts, so make sure you have an airtight container to keep it in):

• 1/2 cup smoky paprika (I actually used sweet hungarian style paprika as that’s what I found in the cupboard)
• 1/4 cup garlic powder
• 1/4 cup dried chilli powder (use less if you don’t like it so spicy, or more if you like it hot)
• 3 tablespoons salt (I used pink himalayan rock salt, but I’m sure any salt would do)
• 2 tablespoons onion powder (I used a combination of onion powder and onion flakes as I didn’t have enough powder)
• 3 tablespoons ground black pepper (I used freshly ground peppercorn medley and nearly gave myself RSI)
• 2 tablespoons celery seeds
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves (After realising I had run out of oregano, I substituted a combination of dried basil and dried tarragon leaves)
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin seeds (again, I ran out of ground cumin so mixed some whole cumins seeds in as well)
• 2 teaspoons dried mustard
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander seeds (I left this out all together)

Pulled Pork:

• 4kg pork shoulder

Brine:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar (I ran out of brown sugar and used some brown & some raw sugar)
• 1/2 cup of cooking salt (I used some table salt, some sea salt and some pink himalayan salt)

Method:

• Combine all the ingredients for the dry rub.

• Make the brine by combining the sugar, salt and two tablespoons of the dry rub in a non-metal container just big enough to hold the pork.
• Add two cups of cold water and stir until sugar and salt have dissolved (I actually added the sugar & salt first and dissolved it in a little hot water, then adding cold water to chill the mix and stirring in the dry rub at the end).
• Place pork in container and add enough extra water to cover the meat.

• Cover and refrigerate overnight (I made the brine in the morning and refrigerated it all day and then cooked  the pork overnight).

• Preheat the oven to 100°C. (120°C was as low as my oven would go, but that seemed to be low enough… low and slow is the go…).
• Remove the pork from the brine and pat it dry with paper towels.

• Rub the meat generously with the dry rub mix until it is completely covered.

• Place in a baking dish or cast-iron pot and cover.

• Cook at 100°C (120°C) for 10-12 hours (11 hours 45 minutes) without disturbing.{mum’s note: Sounds interesting but lot of time X}

To serve:

• Pull meat apart with tongs or two forks. (Here’s a video that show how to “Pull” the pork with forks.)

• (I strained the juices, as suggested in the video above, and added them back into the pulled pork to retain some moisture.)

• Serve with barbecue sauce or apple sauce on a crusty bread roll accompanied by some cooking juices or with roast vegetables.

 It was absolutely delicious… melt in the mouth and so flavourful… I’ve been eating it for a couple of days now… next I have to find a good BBQ sauce recipe, as the stuff in the bottle just doesn’t really seem to do it justice… any suggestions?