The day I pulled off a Pulled Pork!

Bacon Bacon Bacon - for me are the Holy Trinity. My motto is, 'bacon always makes it better.' I try to use pork products whenever it can. You can literally use everything from snout-to-tail! Shoulder, loin, fillet, rib chop, chump chop, leg, belly and my favourite the ribs. But in recent times a lot of chefs are opening a whole new culinary experience by using the less cliché cuts like cheeks, ears, trotters, tails and heads. Each cut has its own distinct texture and flavour. 

I’ve done the traditional ham for the last two Christmas lunches. If done well this is an amazing cut of pork. So, I was walking through the meat section and saw this amazing piece of gammon. Gammon is basically the meat from the hind legs of a pig that has been cured in the same way as bacon. Gammon is sold raw and needs to be cooked; whereas ham is sold cooked or dry-cured and ready to eat. So, I take it home and I’m like it’s not really Christmas and I don’t want to do a ham. Finally, after a lot of long stairs at the ceiling and then outside the window and again at the ceiling, we decide on a Pulled Pork burger. This is where you need to go back to what I mentioned in the start of this food story. “Each cut has its own distinct texture and flavour” D’oh moment right there. Most pulled pork recipes are based on a pork shoulder. So, there I was sitting with a slab of the hind legs when I really needed was the butt! But I’m an Indian and in India we have a ‘juggad’ or ‘hustle’ for everything and I’m a F-ustler! (get it..get it?) Comment if you did 😊

For the gammon you’ll need:

1 nice big chunk of gammon aka. the wrong cut of meat for a pulled pork recipe

1 bottle of apple cider

2 tbsp English mustard

2 tbsp honey

Cook the gammon in the cider or you could even use simple brine of salt, sugar and vinegar. This should take about 30 mins at a steady medium flame. Cut the skin off the top and slather with English mustard and honey. Then place this in a baking tin and cover with foil and into the oven for another 15 mins. While this is cooking let’s prepare the barbeque sauce.

For the sauce you’ll need:

1 cup tomato ketchup, I used Maggi Hot and Sweet Tomato Chilli sauce (available at your local Indian store)

1 cup water but but but trust me you got to try this with half a cup of cider.

1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar

5 tbsp brown sugar

½ tbsp onion powder

½ tbsp garlic powder

½ tbsp ground black pepper

½ tbsp ground mustard

Juice from 1 lime or a clementine

1 tbsp Worcestshire sauce

If you work at my speed, your oven timer should be going right about NOW! Cut the fat off and put this in a sauce pan. As fat melts, start adding the dry ingredients and as they cook along start adding the liquids. Let the sauce simmer for 10 minutes tops. It’s fine if it’s a bit watery at this point. Put the sauce and your gammon into a pressure cooker. At this point you’ll realised why I’m a hustler. Yes, pressure cooker. Let the pressure whistle go off twice on high heat. And then two more whistles at a low flame. Let the cooker cool off naturally and open it up. Your gammon still looks nothing like a pulled pork preparation. Take two forks and start shredding the meat and voila!

  

No burger is complete without condiments so let’s try these:

Rudge Slaw: This is my mate’s recipe that made me fall in love with slaw.

Combine shredded cabbage and carrots in a large bowl. Whisk together the mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, grainy mustard, salt and pepper in another bowl. Add this to the vegetable mixture. Mix well to combine all those ingredients. I used a lot of mayonnaise, so my suggestion is to use less to start with and increase the quantity if necessary. Rudge says that it needs to be lightly coated!

Pickled mangoes:

Cut some mango stripes and add some lime, sugar and chilli powder. Let this sit in the fridge for a bit.

Enjoy all this goodness between burger buns and you’ll be as amazed as I was with what you've ‘pulled’ off!