More Pulled Pork

Sometimes us food bloggers get a bit single-minded about something. I’ve done Japanese noodles, cabbage and bacon, to mention a few. Now it’s apparently pulled pork. In my defense I have to say that pulled pork is very modern and I’m only going with the times.

Last time I simply roasted a pork neck at fairly low temp. This time it’s been allowed to wallow in its dry rub overnight and the cooking method will be a bit more elaborate.  A few years back I was given my parents’ spaghetti pot, because it didn’t work with their new induction stove. The pot comes with its own colander, which I’ve often thought should be usable for large scale steaming. And since the whole pulled pork thing has a bit of a macho air about it we’ll be using beer for steam (More specifically a pale ale from Denmark) Some kind of semi-moist pot roast I guess.

Aforementioned meat (one of many pork neck chunks residing in the freezer) in colander/steamer thingy. Beer goes in pot, followed by colander. Lid applied and the whole thing goes into the oven. In my oven it’s a rather snug fit, so one could probably use the stove too, but oven temp is so much more exact. 212 F in this case.

Meat after one hour. It’s showing signs of being cooked, but there’s not a lot of steam going on – more a faint smell of beer going flat.

Meat after two and a half hours. Applied a sprinkle of rub just in case. The smell of simmering beer is becoming rather tangible.

We decided to go have barbecue dinner with my brother, so I left the beer steaming contraption to its own devices

‘Flintstone roast’ – marinated slice of ham on the bone – is standard bbq fare for Swedes.

Meat after seven hours. Opening the oven door revealed a considerable amount of steam and the meat has visibly shrunk and is really starting to lose its structural integrity. Satisfied with the level of tenderness I applied another sprinkle of rub and increased temp to 250 F and left the lid off for an hour to get a bit of a bark.

Mission accomplished.

I decided to try this batch of pork in hot dog buns, which works quite well.

It’s also worth mentioning that I took my ‘secret’ sauce from the last post and improved it with a bit more mustard, a darker treacle, plenty of dark muscovado sugar and a dash of liquid smoke.

Midnight Pork

With pulled pork being all the rage over here (probably because of American cooking shows) and me having recently eaten some in NY and also the pork necks at the neighborhood grocery being ridiculously cheap this little project more or less came together on its own.

I’m sure there are many established ways to cook pork for pulling, but I prefer to not look things up unless absolutely necessary. My cooking method of choice is the ordinary oven, set to 100 degrees C (212 F) with a dish of water sitting at the bottom to provide some steam.

A two pound piece of pork neck, cut in half to reduce cooking time, brined and then covered in a dry rub consisting of mostly equal parts salt and sugar, half-parts smoked paprika and garlic powder and quarter-parts black pepper, onion powder, rosemary and ginger.

With the pork in the oven it’s time to improvise some sauce. In NY I encountered two types of barbecue sauce; The sweet, gooey sort and the thinner vinegary sort. I liked both and went somewhere in between. The piece de resistance of my concoction, though, is the Danish æblegløgg. (Gløgg (or glögg in Swedish) is the Scandinavian type of mulled wine, in this case non-alcoholic and made from unfiltered apple juice, lemon, star anise, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves). For those bad at reading Swedish or guessing what stuff is, the other ingredients are ketchup, honey, smoked paprika, dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, mango vinegar and treacle.

Boiling the sauce down to a more syrupy texture.

A sauce that sticks to the inside of a dispenser bottle is pretty sticky indeed…

The reason for the post title being ‘Midnight Pork’ is that that’s about the time when it was done, since I put it in the oven at around 7 PM. I raised the temp to 150 C (300 F) for the last 20 minutes to get a more defined crust.

Let the pulling begin!

Since I hadn’t planned on going out in search of suitable buns around midnight (and we just don’t get those namby-pamby…I mean delicate… buns they have in the US anyway) I put my pulled pork on toast and was very very happy.

Two Leftovers Enter, One Sandwich Leaves

With a loaf of bread in the box, getting worse for wear by the minute, but with a texture that gets more awesome with toasting, and a batch of leftover meatballs in the fridge shrinking steadily because of a grazing geek with too many assignments to write, there’s one obvious course of action. Meatball sandwich.

When I was a kid I assumed meatball sandwiches were just a joke, since the meatballs would roll off. (In fact, I just remembered a Blondie strip where Dagwood has exactly that problem)

A Swedish meatball sandwich (now the sandwich is Swedish, not necessarily the meatballs) should also have beetroot salad, with chopped pickled beetroots and crème frâiche or mayo as the main ingredients. I didn’t make any, but it’s not very tricky if you want to.

The Recycled Burger Brunch

Yesterday my dear brother threw a barbecue at our parents’ house. He had a slice of marinated ham on the bone, the Swedish trade name for which translates as ‘Flintstone roast’ since it looks like a cartoon steak, which he suggested would suffice, but I had already thawed a kilo of ground beef to cook dinner with, so we had both. After a quick trip to the grocery store the four people attending ended up with enough food for 8-10 people. We left my brother with most of the leftover food for lunch boxes, but brought some grilled halloumi and one of the 200 gram cheeseburgers I had made back home with us. Those are the main ingredients for this post.

The burgers were probably the best I’ve ever made. Perfectly seasoned, beautifully slow-barbecued and with lovely flavors of smoke and charcoal.  A night in the fridge gave it a density that would make a meatloaf green with envy. Anyway – burger and halloumi sliced. Revolutionary idolatry optional.

Put burger and halloumi on bread. Add onion to taste and a sprinkle of grated cheese for good measure.  Grill in oven for a while.

Put sandwich on a plate on the balcony. Add potato chips, a squirt of ketchup, funny-looking tomatoes and a cool drink. Then call it brunch only because it’s past noon and the first meal of the day.

The Leftover Peppers Cheese Spread

After making the taco fish cakes and pico de gallo for the last post, I still had a large chunk of green bell pepper and half the chili pepper left, as well as half an orange bell pepper from when I fixed sandwiches for a board meeting. Then, last night at the grocery store I found an intriguing cheese in the discount bin. Marquis; Danish orange-rinded little thing with a very buttery texture. Supposedly it’s quite similar to Saint Albray.

So, top to bottom, diced orange bell pepper, diced green bell pepper, a pre-tasted cheese, a small amount of finely chopped green chili pepper. Using slightly wilted vegetables like these means they won’t add as much moisture in the next step, which is a good thing.

Cut the cheese into more manageable pieces and mix everything in a suitable container. One could probably go on all sorts of seasoning adventures – I only added a pinch of black pepper.

Put the mixture on bread and look happy. If I’d had any red wine I’d probably have some.