Pulled Pork with Filipino Asado BBQ Sauce by Mia P. Manansala @MPMtheWriter

I love my cooking gadgets. As someone who loves to eat and feed people, but doesn't love the act of cooking itself, appliances like my slow cooker and Instant Pot that allow me to set it and forget it are the absolute MVPs of my kitchen. Not only do they make it easy to cook large amounts for parties and/or leftovers for the week, they can take cheap, tasty, but tough protein sources and cook them down until they're nice and tender.

Pulled pork with asado sauce, mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli drizzled with toyomansi

This pulled pork recipe is one of my picky husband's favorites--the sauce is what makes it. I based it on the Filipino asado sauce, which in turn is loosely based on the Chinese char siu. It's sweet and savory and absolutely addicting. You'll want to drizzle it over everything, trust me.

Pulled Pork Ingredients:

• 3-4 lb pork butt/shoulder 
• 2 cups pineapple juice
• 1 star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp black peppercorns 

Pulled Pork Directions:

1. Put all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook for 6 hours on high (or 8-10 hours on low) OR cook in an Instant Pot using the Meat/Stew setting. 
2. Check that the meat is tender enough to shred with two forks. If not, cook until it reaches that level of doneness.
3. Remove meat to a large clean bowl, then make the sauce while it cools a bit.

Filipino Asado BBQ Sauce Ingredients and Instructions:

Take 2 cups of the liquid (strain it, if you'd like) and add it to a medium sauce pan along with:

• 1 - 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 TBSP garlic (or more)
• 1 tsp onion powder 
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 1/2 cup ketchup 
• Red pepper flakes, to taste

1. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer 10-15 minutes. Add a slurry of 1:1 TBSP cornstarch and water to the pot, stir to combine, and simmer a few more minutes to thicken. 
2. While sauce is cooking, shred the meat and remove excess fat.
3. You can add the shredded meat to the sauce and mix to coat thoroughly or serve the pork with sauce drizzled on top or on the side.
4. Enjoy!

Pulled pork ingredients: pineapple juice, pork shoulder/butt, black peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon sticks

Put all the pulled pork ingredients in a slow cooker or Instant Pot--slow cook on high for 6 hours/low for 8-10 hours OR set Instant Pot to Meat/Stew setting.

Check that meat is tender enough to shred with two forks. If not, cook until it reaches the correct level of doneness. When ready, remove the meat to a large, clean bowl to cool a bit.

Measure out two cups of the pulled pork cooking juices.

Add the juices to a saucepan with all the other sauce ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Mix 1 TBSP cornstarch with 1 TBSP water and pour the slurry into the saucepan. Stir and simmer until the sauce thickens to your liking.

Shred the pork. You can mix the shredded meat into the sauce or serve with the sauce drizzled on top or on the side. Enjoy!

What's your favorite "set it and forget it" recipe? Let me know in the comments! Also, I'll be at Left Coast Crime next week where my debut novel, ARSENIC AND ADOBO, has been nominated for Best Debut! If you see me there, make sure to say hi!

If you liked this recipe, make sure you sign up for my newsletter! I include a Filipino-themed recipe every month, as well as giveaways and book recommendations!

 

Homicide and Halo-Halo

Death at a beauty pageant turns Tita Rosie’s Kitchen upside down in the latest entry of this witty and humorous cozy mystery series by Mia P. Manansala.

 

Things are heating up for Lila Macapagal. Not in her love life, which she insists on keeping nonexistent despite the attention of two very eligible bachelors. Or her professional life, since she can’t bring herself to open her new café after the unpleasantness that occurred a few months ago at her aunt’s Filipino restaurant, Tita Rosie’s Kitchen. No, things are heating up quite literally, since summer, her least favorite season, has just started.

 

To add to her feelings of sticky unease, Lila’s little town of Shady Palms has resurrected the Miss Teen Shady Palms Beauty Pageant, which she won many years ago—a fact that serves as a wedge between Lila and her cousin slash rival, Bernadette. But when the head judge of the pageant is murdered and Bernadette becomes the main suspect, the two must put aside their differences and solve the case—because it looks like one of them might be next.

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Super Bowl Recipe for a Crowd!

Pulled Pork for Super Bowl Sunday!

Having a crowd for a Super Bowl Party tomorrow?  This is a recipe for you!  Cook in the slow cooker during the day, and it's ready for kick-off when the party starts.  Serve with a big bowl of cole slaw and whatever else you like.

No, this is not a pulled pork that you smoke lovingly over a charcoal fire stoked with mesquite, applewood or other fancy wood chips.  But it's easy to pull together, and it cooks while you do other things.  What makes it special is the BBQ sauce.  The recipe for my favorite--from an old James Beard cookbook--follows.

Pulled Pork

1 piece of pork loin or pork shoulder/butt--whatever will fit in your slow cooker and will serve the crowd you're having
1 bottle root beer (diet works, too)
1 large onion, sliced
Hamburger buns, toasted
BBQ sauce (recipe follows)

Place pork in slow cooker along with onion.  Add root beer to almost cover.  

Cook on low for approximately 8 hours.

Remove pork from slow cooker.  Remove fat (it should separate from the meat easily), and shred using two forks.

Drain liquid from slow cooker (reserve in case it's needed).  Return pork to slow cooker with onions and enough BBQ sauce (recipe follows) to coat.  (If the mixture is too thick, you can add some of the reserved liquid.)

Barbecue Sauce

2 medium onions, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup of tomato puree

1 teaspoon basil

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup beef stock

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 cup red wine

Saute chopped onions in olive oil until soft.  Add all the rest of the ingredients, except wine, and simmer gently for 15 minutes.  Add wine and simmer for five minutes.

Serve pulled pork over toasted buns with extra BBQ sauce on the side.  

Hope your team wins!  

Note:  This BBQ sauce is not as thick as the bottled stuff.  You can also use a bottle of your favorite sauce, but this sauce is easy and really makes the pulled pork special!

Coming February 4!

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Coming March 4!

Pulled Pork by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: As you heard many times over the past month, I so enjoyed eating during my North Carolina book tour for TOPPED CHEF. Especially eastern Carolina barbecue, which is vinegar-based, rather than made with a red sauce. With company coming last weekend, but the days full of writing and other activities, I had to do something ahead. And I don't own a smoker or a decent crockpot. (I know, what's wrong with me?) I cooked it in a giant pot on low heat right on the stovetop.

The recipe is tweaked from one made by my good friend Joe Kennedy. He can't stand the taste of onions in anything, but I feel they're necessary in this recipe. And the garlic too. The good thing is, you can adjust almost of all of this to your taste. For example, I think the flavor of Liquid Smoke is strong, so I use the smaller amount.

Pulled Pork Ingredients

2 large onions, quartered
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
1 tsp salt
black pepper
4-6 pound pork roast--avoid loin, it will be dry
1-2 Tbsp Liquid Smoke

For the sauce:

1 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1-3 garlic cloves, to taste
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Peel the onions, cut in 8ths, and saute them in a small amount of olive oil in a large heavy pot. Mix together the brown sugar, paprika, salt and pepper, and pat this rub all over the roast. Place the roast on top of the onions and sprinkle the liquid smoke on top.

Meanwhile, stir the vinegar and other ingredients together and pour 1/3 of this into the pan, reserving the rest in the refrigerator.

Cook on low for about 3 hours. When it has cooled, remove any bones, extra fat, and the onions, and shred the meat. 

Add the reserved vinegar sauce and red sauce if desired. (I DO desire it, in fact added two jars of Bone-sucking BBQ sauce.) Cook another 45 minutes or so. Taste to correct seasonings.

Serve on toasted rolls with salad or cole slaw.

Stay up with all Lucy's news on the food critic mysteries: Follow her on Twitter and Like her on Facebook.

PULLED PORK

by Sheila Connolly

I don't know how I made it to my advanced age without knowing about this, until my daughter pointed it out in a food magazine.  I am in love with it:  I can make it and stash it in the fridge or freezer and I have a protein that I can do almost anything with, at the drop of a hat.  Definitely a win-win.

There is little thinking required to make this, but it does take some planning.  You need one boneless piece of pork (preferably shoulder), anywhere from a minimum of two pounds to a maximum of six.  My market seldom has anything larger than two pounds, although I could probably beg something larger from the butcher. But the recipe seems to work with any size.

In a plastic bag, mix a couple of tablespoons of salt, the same of sugar, and maybe ten grinds of pepper (if you have a pepper mill—otherwise, a teaspoon or two of ground pepper will do it).  Shake the bag to mix.  Pat dry your chunk of pork, then put it in the bag and shake to cover evenly with the seasonings.  Stick the bag in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, preheat your oven to low (no more than 250 degrees).  Take out your pork, remove the bag, and place it on a rack in a roasting pan.  Put it in the oven for, oh, five or six hours, depending on how big your roast is.  I've seen recipes that say to baste it with the pan juices now and then, but so far none of mine has produced enough drippings to bother.  This is not time sensitive—just don't forget it's there and leave the house.

Remove the roast from the oven and let cool for a few minutes.  Then tear it apart.  You can use one fork or two, or you can just sink your hands into it when it's cool enough.  It should pull apart easily into long shreds (feel free to sample the nice crunchy bits).  And that's pulled pork!  I've found that a two-pound roast makes about 3-4 cups of shredded meat, which for our family of three goes for two dinner meals.

Yes, there are recipes for it (apart from slathering it with barbecue sauce and slipping it into a bun).  I'm fond of this one:

Pulled Pork and Orecchiette

1 pound orecchiette (they're those round dried pasta that look kind of like little space ships—the name means "little ears")

2 pounds shredded pork, chopped roughly

3 Tblsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 Tblsp dried oregano

1 ½ Tblsp tomato paste

3 cups chicken broth (or a combination of white wine and broth)

1 Tblsp wine or cider vinegar

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Cook the orecchiette in a large part of boiling salted water for 8 minutes (the pasta will not be fully cooked).

Heat the olive oil in a deep sauté pan (you may add pan drippings if you have any) and sauté the onions and garlic over medium heat until soft.  Add the oregano and the tomato paste and stir, then cook for three minutes.  Stir in the broth, vinegar and pork.  Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  (You may wonder where the salt and pepper are—they're on the pork, so do not add any more until you've tasted the sauce.)  Add more broth as needed, if the mix seems dry.

Add the orecchiette and cook until the pasta is done.  Remove from heat and stir in the cheese.

Note:  I decided to try a variation on the recipe because I had some fresh spinach on hand, so I threw in about two cups worth when the onions and garlic were soft.  The spinach cooks down nicely, and I get to pat myself on the back for adding a healthy vegetable.

This should serve 6 people.