The Laughing Wolf

Easy Pulled Pork

I just realized that I forgot to put up a recipe last week, so will do two today. Given that the Fourth is upon us, I will start with easy pulled pork.

The key to this one is my thrifty nature: I got the cut of pork shoulder that is very inexpensive because most people don’t like all the trimming required. My way, you don’t need to worry about that. :) Don’t trim, don’t do a thing to it.

Ingredients:
1 large pork shoulder, least expensive cut
1-2 Spanish onions
12-18 cloves of garlic, peeled
1t fresh ground pepper
1T chipotle pepper
2-6 whole chipotle peppers
Water
1t salt

Equipment:
Cutting board
Knife
Stockpot/crockpot
Tongs

Directions:
Put roast in stockpot (or use a crockpot)
Peel one large Spanish onion, cut in half, cut halves into quarters, put all in stock pot
Put in 12-18 cloves of whole peeled garlic
Added a teaspoon or so of fresh ground pepper
Added almost 1T of chipotle pepper
Added several whole chipotle peppers
Cover well with water
Put on lid
Bring to a boil, then reduced to low simmer and let cook for 18+ hours (check regularly)
App. 1 hour before finishing, add salt

The meat will fall apart and all membranes, skin, bone, etc. can be easily separated in a matter of minutes. This method of cooking gives you the maximum amount of meat for minimum effort. It can then be served with BBQ sauce, mole sauce, or sauce of your choice.

I reserved about six cups of the broth, defatted it, and then reduced it until it was 1-2 cups of liquid. Once reduced, I added in bittersweet chocolate, cinnamon, buerre blanc (equal parts flour and butter combined), butter (to aid incorporation of the chocolate and some more to finish the sauce), and a small amount of honey. This made something similar to a mole sauce. Tasty, with the heat from the chipotle, the bitterness of the chocolate, and the sweet of the honey combining nicely.

Enjoy.
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