Apr 17 2009
BBQ Pulled Pork – Inspired by Bobby Flay
Daniel just happened to be tuning into The Food Network on his flight home on Delta when he saw Bobby Flay prepare Squash Blossoms stuffed with St Louis Pulled Pork. He was inspired to prepare his own version for last night’s dinner. Luckily we still had pork shoulder on hand in the freezer, as well as the other few ingredients. The only thing that may deter people from preparing this dish is the amount of time it takes in the oven – 3.5 hours! But let me tell you, it was one of the best pulled pork sandwiches I’ve ever had, so the time is definitely worth it.
Here are the 3 ingredients needed for the base: diced onion, rice wine vinegar, and BBQ sauce. We used what we had in the cupboard, which was KC Masterpiece, but feel free to use whatever brand you want. With 2 lbs of meat, use 2 cups of vinegar and 2 cups of BBQ sauce and mix well.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Add the 2 lbs of cubed pork shoulder into the sauce mixture to coat evenly and season with salt and pepper. Cover the pan with foil and cook 3.5-4 hours.
When it's done, it should look like this. The pork will be fork tender for easy shredding.
Use two forks to shred in a bowl. If you want bigger pieces, don't shred it too much. Add some sauce from the baking dish to make the meat more moist and flavorful.
To go along with the sandwich, I wanted to have a spring salad. Daniel, being the green thumb he is, grows a lot of stuff in our backyard, including this butter lettuce and spring mix. I love how I can just go outside and cut some for our meal.
Here is the finale of the 3.5-hour cooking process! This mouth-watering BBQ pulled pork sandwich will make anyone a happy camper. There's no need to wait for the annual OC Fair to enjoy some good BBQ, because now we can have it anytime! Enjoy with a refreshing bottle of Fat Tire beer!
Where are you from? Is it a secret?
Tania
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Tania, we are from Norwalk, California – LA County. We’ll have to update our “About Us” page to reflect that, shouldn’t we?
thanks for this simple and satisfying recipe, food addicts! i added cayenne pepper to give it a kick and ate w/ garlic fries! you guys are saving the world one recipe at a time, and i’m likin’ it!
great idea with the cayenne pepper! we gotta try that next time as well. how did you prepare your garlic fries?? we’ve been looking for a good recipe for that – do share!!
i cheated by using frozen fries, but i minced garlic w/ butter and heated, added minced parsley and put it over the fries, then seasoned w/ salt…i’m sure it coulda been better, but i’ll leave it to the experts (like yourself) to do that! i’ll wait for the post!
I grew up in tenessaw and we used to have this will a layer of cold slaw on top. delicious. question, what was the temperature – 225f ? just want to be sure. tks.
Hi Tom,
The oven temperature should be set at 300F. Hope you try it out!
Hi. I was wondering if this recipe would work in a crock pot. Any thoughts?
Hi James! I am sure the recipe would work great in a crock pot, because the goal is to braise the meat and get it soft and fork-tender. We couldn’t use a crock pot when we made this because it wouldn’t have fit all of the meat. Give it a try and let us know how it comes out!
Does it get a little bit of crispy parts when its cooked in parts? I once did pulled pork, but just cooked the whole leg. Took forever, but got a nice bark on it. What if its put in a pressure cooker? That would make it really fast? I’m never really home for long periods of time …
The pork was full immersed in the liquid while cooking so it will not crisp up. If you want to crisp it up once the meat is tender enough drain the liquid and broil the meat until crispy. You could do it in the pressure cooker if you are short on time, but you won’t be able to achieve that complex flavor you get from baking for 3-4 hours. The trick with the pressure cooker is to not to under cook the meat making it tough, and not to over cook where you meat becomes mushy with no texture. Let us know how it goes maybe we’ll try it in the pressure cooker ourselves.
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