Pull!

Last time I made pulled pork, the rub was heavy with chipotle and Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning. I loved it, but when I got Em to try a bite, she liked it for a split second, then realized it was scorching hot and accused me of trying to murder her between gulps soda.



So we're trying a little experiment. I didn't pass the chops over the grill this time. Partly out of laziness, partly because it feels wasteful to use a bunch of charcoal to only sear the outside of the meat. If I'm going to burn up four or five bucks worth of fuel, it ought to cook the meal, eh?

Here's the rub recipe this time:

1 part Coarse Sea Salt
1 part Ground Mustard
2 parts Paprika
2 parts Onion Powder
2 parts Garlic Powder
2 parts Dehydrated Bell Pepper Flakes
Maybe half a part freshly ground Black Pepper



I started to try and rub the meat in the mixing bowl, then realized I should do the shake-n-bake trick which works very well.

I debated whether to sauté some onion and garlic to go in with the meat for about three seconds, long enough for me to realize that it's me cooking, so it probably has sautéed onion and garlic as a starter.



Then I split things up to two pans for some experimentation. Six of the cops got diced tomato with their onions as a source of liquid and acid to keep things moist and tender; the other three chops got orange juice with their onions.

Covered with foil shiny-side out (this is slow cooking), and put them in the oven at 175ºF. I'll take them out before I got to work in the morning, they'll be ready to reheat and pull when I get home from work.



It might seem odd to use chops for pulled pork. First off, it's what I had at hand. But also, pork has gotten a whole lot leaner since I was a kid. This is a good thing, a rare instance of the American food industry actually making something a little less deadly. These chops aren't off a lard hog, and sans seasoning they taste suspiciously like chicken. With the loss of all that artery clogging marbling (good riddance), it's gotten a lot tougher. Slow cooking fixes this.



Plus, if I cook them as chops, I'll eat at least a whole chop at a sitting, which is more red meat (or other white meat if you like) than I need to be chowing down. The pulled pork will get mixed with brown rice and black beans and whatnot, my own inexpensive interpretation of what you get at Chipotle (the restaurant, not the pepper that exists in at least three forms in my spice cabinet).



It's been a day or two since I did a Grub post. My left claw isn't 100%, but it's backed off to a nagging ache for the most part, so it wasn't such a drag to stand in the kitchen long enough to throw this together. Plus, I'm running out of leftovers to take to work, and I definitely don't have the budget to be eating at Chipotle when I'm buying a tank of $4 gas every three or four days.