Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

One of the saddest things about living in NYC after years of living in North Carolina is the lack of good BBQ.  Don't get me wrong, there is a variety of different kinds of BBQ available all over the city, some of which is much better than any BBQ available in North Carolina or Maryland.  There are ribs here in the city that are far better than anything I had in North Carolina.  The same goes with brisket and Texas styles sausages.  Yum.  But anyway, back to my first BBQ love - pulled pork.  I love pulled pork.  It is by far one of the world's best pork products.  Alex and I have even semi-seriously discussed a road trip through eastern North Carolina planned around various BBQ destinations with the end destination of the OBX.  We like Carolina-style BBQ that much.

So we decided to try and make some pulled pork at home.  There are various pulled pork recipes for home cooks, including recipes that call for slow cookers, roasting pans, home smokers and BBQs.  This time we decided to try out a slow cooker recipe.  I used a spice rub from Cook's Illustrated that several other blogs mentioned, including DC Foodies, which I used to read when I lived in Maryland.  The spice rub called for far more ingredients than I had been planning on using when mentally formulating my own pulled pork recipe, but it seemed like it was worth a try since so many other people had successfully used the spice rub when making pulled pork.  So this spice rub?  Not North Carolina-style pulled pork.  It is spicy and flavorful, which is awesome, but the spice rub masked some of the intensely porky, slightly smoky, flavor of real North Carolina BBQ.  And it had a kick to it, which is not at all typical of pulled pork.  Alex made an eastern North Carolina-style BBQ sauce to go with the pork and the recipe he used for the BBQ sauce also had a certain amount of kick to it.  We both strongly prefer the vinegar-based eastern NC sauces to the tomato and mustard based sauces of western NC and South Carolina.  So as a whole the pork was much spicier than you would expect.  True Carolina-style BBQ cannot be eaten without coleslaw so we whipped up a batch of that too.  Strangely enough, pulled pork is the only context in which I can be convinced to eat coleslaw.  Any other time I would hand my coleslaw off to Alex, but not here.  I love coleslaw on pulled pork sandwiches!  Unfortunately, our coleslaw didn't turn out that great so it definitely wasn't worth sharing. 

Recipe after the jump!

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

INGREDIENTS:

For the spice rub (from Cook’s Illustrated):

1 tablespoon ground black pepper

1 tablespoon ground white pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (or up to 2 tsp if you like it spicy)

2 tablespoons ground cumin

4 tablespoons paprika

1 tablespoon dried oregano

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon white sugar

2 tablespoons salt

For the pork:

1-6 to 8 lb. pork shoulder

1/4 cup water (optional – depends on how much sauce you want to form)

1 yellow onion, roughly chopped

1/2 tsp liquid smoke (optional - we couldn't find it at Fairway so we didn't use it)

Mix together the spice rub in a large Ziploc bag, shaking it to combine the spices thoroughly. Add the pork shoulder and vigorously shake the bag until the pork is fully covered in the spice rub. Place the bag with the pork shoulder in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours (the longer the pork is allowed to marinate, the stronger the flavor will be).

On cooking day, remove the pork shoulder from the Ziploc bag and place it in the slow cooker. Add the 1/4 cup of water, if desired, and turn the slow cooker to low heat. Cover and allow to cook for six hours. Check to see if the pork is verging on fork tender. If it is, shred the pork using a fork (or tongs) and stir the shredded meat around in the sauce created during the slow roasting. Cook for another 30 minutes to an hour (depending on your crock pot). You can serve the pulled pork by itself or with a barbecue sauce.

Eastern North Carolina-Style BBQ Sauce 

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sea salt

1 tablespoon ground white pepper

1 tablespoon red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 tbsp dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup water

Mix all ingredients together and let sit 10 minutes. Add to chopped barbecue when hot to season the meat and keep it from drying out.