Southern style pulled pork – a Jamie Oliver recipe

Ok, so I said from the beginning of my Jamie Oliver project, that I didn’t have a deadline for when I would have cooked and tried all of the recipes in Jamie Oliver’s America cookbook. But at this rate I will be a very very old lady before I’m done. So I am hereby trying to kick-start the project once again.

I love a good pulled pork sandwich, and this recipe is one of the reasons that I wanted to do this project in the first place. So when I found some shoulder of pork at the supermarket, I decided that it was time to continue the project.

It’s not a very difficult recipe, it’s just very time consuming, so you need to have at least 6 hours to spare. But it is so worth it. You will get the juiciest and delicious meat. I was a bit nervous if I could get the meat just right and wouldn’t over or undercook it. But it worked perfectly. We even left the apartment for a few hours and went t to IKEA, arrived back home a little later than planned and it still turned out great.

This recipe uses a dry rub, but I also want to try out a wet rub, so I will be making a variation of this recipe sometime in the future.

The coleslaw was pretty good as well. Although I will be using white wine vinegar instead of red wine vinegar next time. It was a bit too sweet when I followed this recipe.

Here’s the recipe:

 

 

Ingredients:

For the pork

Shoulder of pork, neck (approximately 5kg) – The original recipe said to buy a piece with bone, but I could not find that, so I bought one without, and it still worked great.

olive oil

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 heaped teaspoons smoked paprika, plus a little extra for sprinkling over

1 handful fresh mint

1-2 fresh red chillies

6 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

For the coleslaw

½ white cabbage, finely sliced

1 red onion, peeled and coarsely grated

3 carrots, peeled and coarsely grated

2 big handfuls collard greens or spring cabbage, washed and spun dry

3 crunchy apples, very finely sliced

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons mayonnaise, made with free-range eggs

extra virgin olive oil

cayenne pepper

4-5 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Method:

Preheat your oven to full whack. Score the pork skin about 1cm deep all over with a sharp knife. Drizzle a little olive oil over the pork and season generously with salt, pepper and paprika. Rub the flavours all over the skin, then place your pork in a roasting tray in the middle of the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 160ºC. Cook for about 4 hours, basting occasionally with the juices from the tray, then turn the oven down to 150ºC and continue to cook for another 2 hours, or until you can pull the meat apart really easily. Pull all the pork apart, discarding any bones and fat as you go, and use 2 forks to break the meat into small- and medium-sized pieces. Cover with foil until needed.

To make your coleslaw, finely slice your veg and apples or use a food processor or box grater. Put them into a large bowl and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Add your mayonnaise, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of cayenne and the red wine vinegar. Mix everything together until you’ve got a perfect coleslaw texture. Have a taste; it should be fresh and lovely, so season and put it to one side while you dress your meat.

Pick your mint leaves and finely chop them on a large board. Deseed and finely chop your chilli on the same board as your mint. Drizzle the olive oil and red wine vinegar all over the chilli and mint and add a good pinch of salt. Add this to your tray of pulled pork and mix it all together.

Toast some buns, cut in halves and add a dollop of BBQ sauce to the buns. Then a generous spoonful of pulled pork and finally topped off with coleslaw, add the top of the bun and enjoy with a cold beer!