My Big Fat Pork Butt – PERFECTED

When I set up my blog, I thought I would be writing a lot about food since cooking has become something of an obsession for me in the past couple of years.  Instead, I’ve written about a dead cat and a religious experience.  Time to change the subject!

Okay, this is someone else's sandwich. We always eat ours too fast to get a photo.

Today I’m here to tell you how I made pulled pork heaven because I promised my Twitter pal Joey D’Antoni that I would.  Warning: This is at least a two-day recipe. And it’s a lot of work. But it makes a ton of food, people will call you Kitchen Genius, and the leftovers are fabulous.

Get yourself a 5-7 pound bone-in pork butt.  If there’s a thick layer of fat on one side, trim most of that off.  The day before you plan to cook him, brine him overnight.  I use an 8-quart all-purpose plastic container that I got from my local restaurant supply house. You might need to reorganize your refrigerator to accomodate a container this large.

I’ve played with different brining ingredients (apple cider was a nice addition), but here’s the basic formula:

1. Dissolve 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup salt in 2 quarts warm water.
2. Stir in 4 bay leaves, 1/2 tablespoon black peppercorns, and 1 tablespoon of cayenne.
3. Add enough ice to bring the volume up to 4 quarts. Immerse the pork butt in the brine and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, make a braising liquid in a sauce pan:

1. I originally started with 2 cups of veal stock, but hey, how many of us have that kind of stuff handy? I later tried chicken stock, then beef stock, but I think I got better results replacing those with soy sauce (1/2 cup) and water (1 cup).  But of all those experiments, the veal stock was best, hands-down, probably because of its unctuous qualities.  Veal stock also helps the other flavors shine through, I’m guessing.
   PERFECTED, June 24: Skipped the stock, just used about 1 cup water, no soy.
2. Add about 1 cup of orange juice. Fresh tastes best, but I’ve gotten by with mixing some from frozen concentrate.
3. Now add about 3/4 cup of Steen’s pure cane syrup.  If you’ve never had Steen’s, it’s a really unique treat from Louisiana, not hard to find in the South. Get yourself some, and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of ways to use it. (On pancakes, for starters.)
4. Next add 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. I prefer to use Bragg’s organic unfiltered, which is probably way easier to find than the Steen’s cane syrup. 
5. Throw in a pinch of salt and pepper.  Stir, stir, stir. Bring it to a low simmer, then keep it on low heat while you move on to Phase Three.

You’ll need to get the pork butt ready for all the love and attention he deserves.  Here we go:

1. Remove him from the brine, rinse him off, and pat him dry with paper towels.
2. Season him liberally with salt and pepper.
3. Heat 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil in a big-ass pot or dutch oven, and brown the pork butt on all sides. Don’t be shy, get it good and dark, because that crust will become the prize tidbits at the end.
   PERFECTED, June 24: Instead of browning him in the pot, I put my gas grill on low and put the butt in with a foil packet of wet cherry wood chips. (Alder or Apple would be good, too.) Turned the butt every 30 minutes to get a good char on “the big sides” and infuse it with smoke.
4. Remove him from the pot (grill) and set aside. Now’s a good time to preheat the oven to 275 degrees.

Next you’re going to build a comfy bed for the pork butt, all in the same pot you browned him in:

1. Saute 2 onions sliced into about 10 wedges each. I use one sweet Vidalia onion and one spanish yellow onion. You’re doing wedges because later you’ll want to be able to easily retrieve them from the braise.
2. Add a couple of roughly chopped carrots and celery stalks. When they’ve started to soften, add 5-6 smashed cloves of garlic.
3. Wait  a minute or so until you can breathe in the lovely garlic aroma, then add 1.5 tablespoons of Chinese five spice blend (a trick I saw on Top Chef) and about 1 tablespoon of crushed red pepper flakes.  Now a little salt and pepper.
4. Hopefully you’ve been moving all the veggies around with a flat-edge wooden spoon, and you’ve noticed that there’s still some fond (the dark stuff) stuck to the bottom of the pot from browning the pork earlier. Pour 1/4 cup of bourbon in the pot and scrape as much of the fond up as you can (yes, it’s called deglazing).  If that’s not enough liquid to deglaze, add 1/4 cup of water and keep scraping.
   PERFECTED, June 24: Skipped the bourbon/water  deglaze since I didn’t brown the meat in the pot.
5. Gently place the pork butt on top of all the veggies in the pot. Pour the warm braising mixture over him. It will probably come abuot midway to the height of the pork. Cover the pot with a piece of foil and then lid ‘r up and put it in the oven.
6. If it’s not too early in the morning, raise a toast to your pork butt with your own shot of bourbon.

Okay, this is when you get to check your email, do some laundry, watch a movie, make a  nice slaw*, whatever.  You’ll leave your pork butt in the oven for at least 5-6 hours, but every couple of hours take him out to say nice things to him and bathe him gently with the braising liquid.  When he’s finally melting from all the love, carefully move him from the pot to a big oven-proof dish or casserole and let him relax under a sheet of foil.

PERFECTED, June 24: Since he got all that tender-loving smoke, I only braised him for 4 hours.

Now for Phase Five:

1. Scoop all the veggies into a bowl with a slotted spoon.
2. Strain the braising liquid into a fat separator if you have one.  Pour it (sans fat) into a sauce pan and start reducing it over medium heat.
3. Use a couple of forks to start shredding the pork butt. Remove any unsightly blobs of fat as you go.
4. From the bowl of veggies, retrieve as much of the braised onion as you can and add it to the shredded pork. Give the carrots to the dog. (My schnauzer loves those, but hates celery.)
5. Ladle about a cup of the braising liquid back into the shredded pork and toss it all together.  Recover the pork with foil to stay warm until you’re ready to serve it up.

You can keep reducing the rest of the braising liquid until it’s almost syrupy.  It’s great to spoon a bit onto a pulled pork sandwich before piling slaw on top.

*Oh… you want the slaw, too?

Make a vinagrette dressing in a large bowl by whisking together:

• Juice of two limes
• Teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• Enough olive oil
• A few dashes of hot sauce
• About two tablespoons of honey (Huajilla honey if you can get it!)

Now shred, chop or juilienne these goodies and thoroughly toss it all with salt and pepper in the big bowl with the dressing:

• Small head of Napa cabbage
• One red bell pepper
• 5-6 green onions
• One golden delicious apple
• Half a red onion
• Half a cup of cilantro
• Two serrano chiles (leave ‘em out if you don’t like heat)

Now, as I said before, this is a whole lotta food.  Before you refrigerate the leftover pork, add the rest of the braising liquid and it will be wonderfully juicy when you reheat it.  And to my surprise, the slaw was still excellent after three days in the fridge, just not as crispy as day one.

I actually think all of this tastes better the second day, especially in warm flour tortillas. Give it a shot and tell me how it turns out!