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For most of my life I detested the very idea of pulled pork. My professional training as a cook had taught me that if something falls apart, it is overcooked and therefore non grata. In addition, the pulled pork I was introduced to during my early years in the USA was almost always smoked for many hours, then completely inundated in (most of the time crappy) “bbq sauce”.
The whole thing seemed to me to have the texture and taste of some lousy half-smoked cigars mashed-up and mixed with ketchup and vinegar, more often than not served on a limp, tasteless burger bun. As a result, for many years I stayed away from pulled pork.
This changed when I got to travel in Latin America and in Latin American-circles, where pulled pork took on a very different dimension, one which I was finally able to wholeheartedly embrace. Usually braised in the oven for hours, with lots of cilantro, lime, garlic, various citrus juices and sometimes the addition of onions and/or chilies, the pork tastes lively and fresh, not at all heavy or greasy or overly sweet. Usually, it is served with white rice and yucca or a simple salad and most of the time with some kind of spicy, vinegar based condiment.
Below find my own take on pulled pork, as I imagine I would serve it at my imaginary, popular nightspot in a Havana of long-gone times, with hot girls dancing to the Rumba, Mojitos flowing freely and eating, drinking, dancing, making love and enjoying life being the only thing on everybody’s mind……………..
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Bon Appetit ! Life is Good !
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Pulled Pork “Havana Loco”
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Pulled Pork “Havana Loco”
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Pulled Pork “Havana Loco”
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Preparation :
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- whole porkbutt, shank removed
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- cut pork butt in half, reserve one half for another recipe, score skin of porkbutt in a criss-cross pattern
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- orange, lime, kosher salt, chili flakes, garlic paste
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- mix the juices from the fruit, 2 tblsp salt, 1 tsp chili flakes, 2 tblsp garlic paste with 2 pints of water, pour into pan with porkbutt, lightly cover with alu-foil, cook at 350F for 4 hours or until pork falls apart when lightly squeezed
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- meanwhile, make sauce by blending with a beurre-mixer or in food processor : lime juice, garlic paste, cayenne pepper, cilantro, kosher salt and olive oil
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- almost……..
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- cilantro, garlic and lime sauce
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- season fresh spinach leaves and thinly sliced radish with kosher salt and cayenne pepper
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- sour dough bread (use your own choice of bread)
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- cut in half, remove some of the soft part (don’t throw away, this is great to dunk into the pork juices)
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- after 4 hours at 350F….
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- put pork into a bowl, remove chicharones (crispy skin), reserve chicharones
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- chicharones
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- remove bone from meat, give bone to Bella 🙂
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- shredd the pork with 2 forks or tongs
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- add the pork juices from the pan to the meat (make it VERY moist without drowning it)
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- put some spinach on the bottom half of the bread
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- top with meat, thinly sliced red onions, radish and more spinach leaves
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- pile it on………
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- douse with cilantro, garlic and lime sauce
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- cover with top-half of bread, slice in half or quarters
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- Pulled Pork “Havana Loco”
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- Pulled Pork “Havana Loco”
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- Pulled Pork “Havana Loco”
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ChefsOpinion 