Southern Pork BBQ Ala 'Dexie

Posted by Dexie

When someone from North Carolina USA says, "pork bbq", he/she is referring to pulled/shredded pork meat doused with vinegar based barbecue sauce. Yes, here in the south we eat tomato-based chicken barbecue but mostly, we love our pork barbecue. I love pork too much it's not even funny. I also like vinegar so the combination makes me very very happy :)

The authentic way of cooking Southern Pork BBQ is roasting a pig in a fire grill/pit. The meat will cook there for hours and hours and hours. Well I don't have a fire pit and I certainly don't have a whole pig roast. That doesn't mean life is over. If there's a will, there's a way. I was able to make a Filipino Lechon so easily, I'm pretty sure I could handle a southern pork bbq. Not as authentic as southern people would like but it's pretty damn close.

First, rub both sides of a 6-pound pork shoulder with salt and pepper, put it in a crock-pot, pour 1 cup of water, cover and set it on LOW or HIGH. LOW if you're starting it at say about 7 in the morning. HIGH if you're starting it about 10am.

Let it cook for hours.

Make your sauce :
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup white vinegar
2 tsp worcestershire sauce
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp chili pepper
1 tbsp light brown sugar
4 tbsp Hot Sauce ( or less)
lots and lots of red pepper flakes, this will depend on how hot you want it.
salt and pepper to season

Mix everything together and store in the fridge while the pork is cooking. 2 hours before you turn your crock-pot off, the meat should at least be tender by now, pour half of the sauce into the crock pot. Let the pork and sauce cook together.

After an hour, ladle some of the sauce from the crock-pot, onto a small pot, adding some of the BBQ remaining sauce mixture. Simmer and reduce the sauce on the stove. Whisk it constantly. You'd want the sauce to reduce half and it should look a little bit thicker.

After all that, and your pork is cooked and tender wherein the meat should easily fall off of the bone, shred/pull the meat by using 2 forks. Do this step until everything has been shredded.

Transfer the meat onto a container. Pour over the reduced vinegar-based bbq sauce on the meat. It's up to you how much sauce you want on 'em. Sprinkle more red pepper flakes if you prefer it hotter. Mix everything together. VOILA!

I'm not claiming this recipe to be the authentic NC recipe but this is how I could feed my craving for Southern Pork BBQ. Like I said, it's pretty damn close :) .

TAGS: North Carolina Pork Bbq, Pork Bbq, Pork Roast, Pulled Pork Barbecue, Shredded Pork Bbq, Southern Bbq Sauce, Southern Pork Bbq, Vinegar Based Bbq Sauce
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