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06/22/2017 12:01 AMMy favorite ways to cook in the summer often involve anything but the stove. With a small house and a tiny kitchen, everything heats up pretty quickly. So, my grill gets a good workout when it’s nice and, when it’s not, I often turn to my crockpot and have it do its work while I’m off at work.
So when my co-worker and our resident web ninja Laura Robida mentioned recently that she was making pulled pork, I asked for the recipe. She says she starts prepping around 6 a.m., and everything is ready to go by 7 a.m. She served the delicious pulled pork dinner at 6 p.m., on Italian rolls. She says once you take the meat out of the liquid, it cools down pretty quickly, and so she recommends heating the barbecue sauce. While she’s partial to Sweet Baby Ray’s, she says she also recently used the Stop & Shop store brand, after being tempted by a “buy one of theirs, get ours free” special. She liked it. “It was surprisingly good,” she says, adding that she never thought to try it before.
If you have time and the inclination, you can also make your own barbecue sauce. Check out a recipe recommended by our food columnist Lee White by going to zip06.com, and search for “Lee White Best Ever Baked Beans.”
Laura’s pulled pork recipe will make about 15 servings, enough to feed a hungry family. She’s doubled it with no problem, using about nine pounds of pork shoulder. In that case, she gave away some of the leftovers and froze some and she says it freezes well for those lazy summer nights when you’re starving, but don’t feel like cooking at all.
Web Ninja Pulled Pork
By Laura Robida
Ingredients:
2 medium onions, sliced thin
4 medium garlic cloves, sliced thin
1 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp kosher salt
½ tsp cumin
¼ tsp cinnamon
1, 4 ½- to 5-pound pork shoulder
2 cups of your favorite barbecue sauce
Directions
Place onions and garlic in an even layer in a crockpot. Pour broth over the top. Combine sugar, chili powder, salt, cumin, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Rub the spice mixture on the pork. Place the pork on top of onions and garlic. Cover and cook 6 to 8 hours on high or 8 to 10 hours on low. Drain liquid, trim fat, and shred. Return the pork to the crock, add bbq sauce, and turn the pork until well coated.
Tip that I’ve just stumbled on: If you cube the pork shoulder instead of putting it into the crockpot as a whole piece of meat, you don’t really need to shred it. When you remove it from the crockpot, it should just fall apart, saving you a step.