Base: 7 lbs. pork shoulder or pork butt, cut into 12-14 pieces
1 liter Dr Pepper or "imitation Dr Pepper" (85% for cooking, 15% to serve on the rocks)
Flavor: 1 medium-large onion, sliced
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
sweet barbeque sauce for serving (recipes follows)
Heat: slow cooker (Crock-Pot)
1. Preheat the slow cooker on high
- Tip: I like to add an inch of liquid to the pot-- in this case, an inch of soda.
2. Lightly brown all sides of pork
- Lightly season all sides of each piece of pork with salt and pepper.
- Working with 3-4 pieces of pork at a time, lightly brown all sides of the pork (3-4 mins each batch).
- Add oil as necessary, but should only need it for the first batch.
- Gently drop lightly-browned pork pieces into the crock pot.
3. Saute onions and garlic
- In the same pan, with a little oil, saute onions and garlic.
4. Add Dr Pepper or Dr Shasha or Coca Cola
- Tip: when adding a hefty amount of cold or room-temperature-warm liquid to a hot pan/pot, slowly stream liquid down along the sides of the pan. The liquid will already be warm when it reaches the bottom of the pan, thus take a shorter time to fully heat up.
- Heat on high until just boiling.
5. Add jalapenos
- Tip: after adding jalapenos, immediately turn off the heat, and immediately pour mixture into the crock-pot. Otherwise, the heat in the jalapenos will electrify and the overwhelming spicy aroma will linger and you will be breathing in jalapeno pollutants :)
6. Let the crock-pot cook on high for a minimum of 4 hours
- 5 hours is usually ideal for me.
7. Shred pork and serve with sweet barbeque sauce (recipe follows)
- Use a fork or two to shred all the pork.
- Tip: you may want to weed out any excessively fatty pieces.
This sweet pulled pork can be served in many different ways. Like Cafe Rio, you can have it in a salad, burrito, taco, enchilada, etc,. You can certainly try having it in a sandwich with home made coleslaw. It may not sound as good as it tastes, but I love it because it tastes great! Coleslaw has mayo... sandwich + mayo, great combo. The green cabbage in coleslaw is like lettuce... sandwich + mayo + lettuce, great combo. I will be posting a video & blog on my home made coleslaw soon, so stay tuned for that :)
* Notes: this recipe is very forgiving. Keeping all other variables constant, you can use 6 lbs. or 8 lbs. of pork and the end results will not be compromised. Likewise, you can use 75% or 100% of the one-liter of soda and the end results will not be compromised. As always, I encourage you to change any part(s) of this recipe to adjust to your personal preferences. Just don't deviate too much-- foregoing the sweet barbeque sauce will not result in the same great taste, but that's just my opinion :) Whatever you do, just make sure you have fun in your kitchen.
Watch a demo of this recipe and join me in my kitchen where everything is served with love.
Sweet Barbeque Sauce:
- 1 cup juice from crock pot, strained to remove garlic, onion, jalapeno, and pork bits
- 1/3 cup water
- 5 tbsp. brown sugar, not firmly packed
- 5 tbsp. granulated sugar
- 3 tbsp. ketchup
- 1/2 lemon, juiced
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- salt to taste
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tsp. yellow mustard
- a few pinches of cayenne
- 1 tsp. paprika
- 2-3 tbsp. corn starch
1. Combine all ingredients over low heat in a small-medium saucepan
2. Thicken with corn starch
- Turn heat to medium-low.
- Combine corn starch with a few spoons of water.
- Slowly pour in cornstarch, a little at a time, while simultaneously stirring the sauce.
- Pour & mix until it reaches your desired level of thickness.
- Tip: avoid using too much corn starch as sauce will thicken itself a little more as it cools.
Enjoy!
♥ Yen
No comments:
Post a Comment