I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect pulled pork recipe for ages and I’ve scoured the web for one that sounds just right but couldn’t find what I wanted until a twitter friend ( @babberblog ) mentioned that he had a great recipe and very kindly agreed to email it to me. Fast forward about two weeks and we were on a few days break at an apartment in a holiday park in Woolacombe and I thought that it was the ideal time to try out this recipe.. The fact that I wouldn’t be paying for the 8 hours of slow cooking in a gas oven may have swayed that decision.

I bought all the required herbs and spices locally ( well the ones I didn’t already have) and then picked up a big pork shoulder in Tescos. We didn’t know where the nearest butchers was and I was convinced that a basic pork shoulder from Tesco wouldn’t be great but it really really was.

So anyway here are the ingredients you need, I’ll show you the ingredients listI was given then how I adapted it slightly to suit me:

Babberblogs pulled pork:

A big Pork shoulder
2 tbsp American Mustard
10 tbsp Dark brown sugar
10 tbsp white sugar
6 tbsp Paprika
3 tbsp Sea salt (coarse ground)
3 tbsp Garlic granules
2 tbsp Black pepper (freshly ground)
2 tbsp Ginger powder
2 tbsp Onion powder
2 tbsp Rosemary (ground)
2 tbsp Celery seeds (coarse ground)

My slightly adapted list:

Biggest pork shoulder Tescos had, it cost me just £4 ( not on offer)
2 tbsp Colmans English Mustard ( could not find American anywhere at the time)
8 tbsp Billingtons Molasses
8 tbsp white sugar
5tbsp Paprika
1tbsp smoked Paprika
2 tbsp standard sea salt
1 tbsp Maldon smoked sea salt
3 tbsp garlic granules
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns
2 tbsp Rosemary
2 tbsp celery seeds
1/2 an onion chopped thickly

As you can see there are no massive changes, the mustard was substituted due to me not being able to find the American mustard. The salt, pepper and Paprika were substituted in some part due to personal taste as I love variety in my seasonings and also to encourage some smokiness and the chopped onion which I added just for the overnight marinade was because I forgot to get onion powder. The major change for me was swapping the brown sugar for molasses. Molasses are more expensive but the taste difference is incredible as well as creating a sticky BBQ sauce … Yum.

How to cook:

The night before you want to cook your pork mix all your dry ingredients into a bowl before rinsing the shoulder in cold water and removing the skin and trimming the fat down to a 1cm layer. Rub the mustard into your pork, massaging it in to every bit of the meat and leave to sit for 30 minutes. After the 30 mins has elapsed rub your dry mix into the meat. You may find there is too much mix for your meat depending on the size of the shoulder. I used it all! Wrap your meat in clingfilm or sit in a bowl and cover in clingfilm which is what I did and place in fridge.

The next day remove your meat from the fridge several hours before you want to cook it and allow to get to room temperature. Place in roasting tin and cook at 120C/gas mark 1/2 for 6 hours before double wrapping in foil and cooking for further two hours. Do not be tempted to check on your meat just leave until the time is up. After the 8 hours remove from oven and leave to sit in foil for 30 minutes as I think this will make it even more tender. Whilst you do this return your roasting tray to oven to warm up the sticky sauce at the bottom.

Open your foil return meat to the tray and tear apart with two forks stirring into the sticky sauce as you do. Serve immediately or cover in foil to keep warm.

I served mine in tortilla wraps with fresh green leafy salad and coleslaw and a teeny amount of Gefen BBQ sauce. There was no need for sauce really as it was very moisty and tasty. It was equally good the next day in rolls and even 2 days later when we gave some to Izzys grandparents to take home.

Definitely worth trying and thanks so much to Lewis @babberblog for sharing the recipe with me.

Let me know if you try this 🙂