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Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Pig Picker Pucker Sauce

Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Pig Picker Pucker Sauce

You can’t get much more American than pulled pork, so patriotism alone requires you to learn how to make it. This spice-rubbed, hickory-smoked pork shoulder torn into meaty shreds, doused with vinegar sauce, and served on a sesame bun with sweet pickles epitomizes the barbecue of the Carolinas and Deep South. I’ll leave it to local partisans to slug out the fine points: Should the meat be shredded, chopped, or sliced? Serve it with or without “brownies”—the burnt bits of pork skin? Should the sauce be flavored with mustard, ketchup, or hot pepper flakes? Well, you know how these debates go. All alternatives are here—the choice is yours.

Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches


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Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Pig Picker Pucker Sauce

Recipe Notes

  • Advance Prep: 15 Minutes
  • Grill Time: 3 Hours
  • Yield: Makes 12 pulled pork sandwiches
  • Equipment: Your basic kitchen gear including an instant-read thermometer, plus insulated rubber gloves, and 2 large forks (optional); if grilling, your basic grilling gear including an aluminum foil pan and a charcoal grill

Ingredients

For the pork

  • 1 bone-in pork shoulder (aka Boston butt; 5 to 6 pounds)
  • 1/2 cup Carolina Pit Powder or your favorite barbecue rub

For the Pig Picker Pucker Sauce

  • 1-1/2 cups cider vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar, or more to taste
  • 1 tablespoon Louisiana-style hot sauce, such as Crystal, or more to taste
  • 2 teaspoons coarse salt (kosher or sea)
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons hot red pepper flakes
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke (optional)

For serving

  • 12 sesame seed hamburger buns
  • 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted
  • 1 jar (16 ounces) sweet pickle chips
  • 4 cups Slaw

Recipe Steps

1: Prepare the pork: Place the pork shoulder in a roasting pan and generously season it on all sides with the rub, massaging the spices onto the meat. You can cook the pork right away, but you’ll get even more flavor if you let it cure in the refrigerator for a couple of hours or overnight.

2: Roasting Method: Preheat the oven to 325°F. Place the pork, fat side up, in the roasting pan in the oven. Roast until sizzling, crisp, and darkly browned on the outside and the internal temperature registers 190° to 195°F on an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat, about 3 hours. From time to time, spoon any pan juices over the top of the pork shoulder.

Grilling method: Set up the grill for indirect grilling, place an aluminum foil drip pan in the center, and preheat the grill to medium (325°F). When ready to cook, brush and oil the grill grate. Place the pork shoulder, fat side up, over the drip pan. Toss 1-1/2 cups wood chips on the coals of a charcoal grill (3/4 cup on each mound of coals) or place the chips in the smoker box of a gas grill (charcoal works best). Cover the grill and cook the pork shoulder until sizzling, crisp, and darkly browned on the outside and the internal temperature registers 190° to 195°F on an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat, about 3 hours. Add coals as needed (about every hour) to maintain this temperature (you’ll need 8 to 10 coals per side), adding the remaining wood chips after 1 hour. (Don’t oversmoke the meat or it will taste bitter.) In the unlikely event the pork browns too much, loosely tent it with aluminum foil.

3: Meanwhile, make the Pig Picker Pucker Sauce: Combine the vinegar, brown sugar, hot sauce, salt, hot red pepper flakes, black pepper, and 1/2 cup of water in a mixing bowl and stir until the salt and sugar dissolve. Taste for seasoning, adding more sugar and/or hot sauce as necessary. If you roasted the pork in the oven, add a few drops of liquid smoke to the sauce. The sauce will mellow when mixed with the pork.

4: Transfer the pork to a cutting board, loosely tent it with aluminum foil, and let it rest for 15 minutes. Then, wearing insulated food gloves, pull off the skin and crust. (If the skin is leathery, crisp it directly over the fire.) Finely chop these to add to the pulled pork at the end. Using your gloved fingers or 2 large forks, pull the pork into large chunks, discarding any bones or lumps of fat or gristle. Tear the pork into meaty shreds. Alternatively, you can coarsely or finely chop the pork with a meat cleaver. You can also cut it into slices across the grain with a knife.

5: Transfer the meat (and skin, if using) to a large mixing bowl or to the roasting pan once you have discarded the excess fat. Stir in Pig Picker Pucker Sauce to taste (start with 3/4 cup and add more 1/4 cup at a time); the pork should be tart and spicy. Transfer any remaining sauce to a bowl for serving.

6: Split the sesame buns and lightly brush the insides with the melted butter. Lightly toast the buns on the grill, under the broiler, or in a skillet over medium-high heat. Pile shredded pork onto the buns and top it with sliced pickles. Add the slaw. Serve additional Pig Picker Pucker Sauce on the side.

Recipe Tips

What Else: Tradition calls for the pork to be roasted for half a day in a smoky pit over a bed of glowing hickory embers. Thanks to a pork shoulder’s high fat content, you can cook it at a higher temperature in about three hours. The best way to approximate a pit at home (unless you have a smoker) is with a charcoal burning kettle grill and 3 cups hardwood chips soaked in water for 30 minutes and drained.

Apartment-bound pork lovers can produce a credible pulled pork in the oven, and you’ll find instructions for doing that here. (If you do cook the pork indoors, I suggest you add a few drops of liquid smoke to the vinegar sauce.)

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