Hairy Bikers BBQ Pulled Pork

Hairy Bikers bbq pulled pork came out of a night at a ranch outside Nashville, so the story behind it is in British Classics along with the recipe. It serves six at roughly 760 calories, though you need 7 hours 45 minutes and a bag of charcoal to do it properly.

Nashville is where it started, since Si and Dave write in British Classics that “we pulled pork and the world seemed a happy place”. It was their Mississippi series, so this version finishes over charcoal with wood chips instead of sitting in a braising liquid.

With only 100ml of water in the tin, the foil seal is what keeps the meat from drying out, so pinch it tight around every edge. Get that right and the shoulder cooks in its own steam for five hours without you touching it.

Hairy Bikers BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe

Author: Alex Saidani Cooking Method:Barbecuing Cuisine:British American Courses:Dinner

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time:1 hour 45 minutesCook time:5 hours 45 minutesRest time: 15 minutesTotal time:7 hours 45 minutesServings:6 servingsCalories:760 kcal Best Season:Summer

Description

Half the rub goes on two hours ahead and half just before cooking, which builds the crust in two layers rather than one. Five hours of slow heat softens the shoulder, then three quarters of an hour over hot coals turns the outside almost black. Shredded straight into soft rolls. Drop the barbecue and it comes down to 7 hours.

Ingredients

For the Pork:

• 2kg boneless pork shoulder
• 6 white bread rolls
• Barbecue sauce, to serve
• Coleslaw, to serve

For the Dry Spice Rub:

• 50g soft dark brown sugar
• 4 tbsp smoked hot paprika
• 3 tbsp flaked sea salt
• 1 tbsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp dry mustard powder
• 2 tsp dried thyme

Instructions

1. Rub it once: Mix all the spice rub ingredients in a bowl, then rub the meat all over with half of it. Put the pork in a shallow dish, cover it loosely with clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for 1 to 2 hours, keeping the rest of the rub back.
2. Rub it again: Take the pork out and massage in the remaining rub, so the crust builds up in two layers. Heat the oven to 150°C/Fan 130°C/Gas 2.
3. Seal the tin: Stand the pork on a rack in a roasting tin, fat side up, then pour 100ml of water into the tin underneath. Cover the pork and tin with a large sheet of foil, pinching it around the edges to make a proper seal.
4. Cook it low: Put the tin in the oven and cook for 5 hours, while you leave it well alone.
5. Light the coals: Half an hour before the pork is ready, light at least 2kg of lumpwood charcoal in a kettle barbecue. Once the coals are hot and lightly ashed over, push them to one side, then sit the pork straight on the barbecue in its drained tin or a foil tray.
6. Add the smoke: Throw on a couple of handfuls of soaked wood chips, either into a foil dish or onto the coals, then close the lid.
7. Build the crust: Barbecue for 45 minutes, until the smoke and heat form a crust all over. It wants to look very dark reddish-brown and even a bit blackened in places, so check now and then that the pork stays at 75°C or above inside.
8. Rest and shred: Move the pork to a board, cover it with foil and leave it for 15 minutes. Pull it into shreds with two forks, then fill the split rolls and serve with barbecue sauce or hot sauce, and some coleslaw.

FAQs

Is there a Hairy Bikers barbecue sauce to go with it?

Not in this recipe, no. British Classics just says barbecue sauce to serve, which means a shop-bought one. But there is a proper Si and Dave sauce over in Meat Feasts, attached to their bbq spare ribs, and it suits this pork perfectly.

That one is built on ketchup and cider vinegar, with three tablespoons of the dry rub stirred straight in, which is why it matches a pork this heavily spiced. Borrow three tablespoons of this rub before it goes on the meat and you can do the same thing here. If you would rather go the hot sauce route instead, the buffalo wings page has a butter and cider vinegar one that takes about four minutes.

Do I actually need a barbecue for this Mississippi pulled pork?

The barbecue step is marked optional in the book, so no. But be clear about what you lose: after five hours in a sealed tin the meat is tender and pale, and every bit of the dark crust comes from those 45 minutes over coals. Skip it and you have soft pork with nothing on the outside.

If you have no barbecue and no plans to get one, the pulled pork version in Meat Feasts is the better recipe to cook. That one was written for an oven from the start, so it braises in ale and maple syrup and builds its flavour in the tin rather than over smoke.

The recipe says skin-side up, but my shoulder has no skin. What now?

Boneless shoulder usually comes without skin, so go by fat instead. Find the side with the thicker layer and put that uppermost, because it melts down through the meat as it cooks and keeps the fibres moist from above.

If your joint has barely any fat on either side, lay a couple of rashers of streaky bacon over the top before you seal the foil. It is not in the book, it is just something I do when the butcher has trimmed a joint hard.

Which wood chips work, and how long do they last?

Soak them first as the packet says, or they burn out in minutes instead of smouldering. Two handfuls covers the full 45 minutes, and there is no point adding more because the meat stops taking on smoke fairly early.

Fruit woods like apple and cherry are gentler, while hickory and oak hit harder. Given this rub carries four tablespoons of hot paprika and a tablespoon of cayenne, apple is the safer choice, since hickory on top of that much spice buries everything else.

What else can go on the coals while the pork rests?

The barbecue is lit and hot for 45 minutes, then sits there doing nothing for the 15 minutes the pork rests. Sticky chicken wings fill that gap well, since they are baked at 180°C in the recipe but finish just as happily over dying coals.

For something on the side, panzanella salad is a better fit here than anything creamy. The sherry vinegar, capers and anchovies in it are sharp enough to stand up to a rub carrying four tablespoons of hot paprika, and it wants half an hour of standing time anyway, which is exactly the window you have.