Pork off 2011: Piggy chow

As soon as we moved to London, I started to crave outdoor space. Not for growing plants or lounging in the sun, pleasant as these pastimes are, but instead for making fire and cooking meat. However, for our first few years here, we lived in a tiny top-floor flat and had to content ourselves with looking down onto other people's gardens. I think it was my South African DNA asserting itself when I demanded that our next flat must have some sort of outdoor area - no matter how small. This was also how I justified the rash decision to buy a BBQ (or should I say a braai?) as soon as we moved into a flat with a balcony. Before the Ikea shopping was unpacked, before we even had a bed - we had the ability to grill meat just outside the cramped comfort of our own home. Never mind that the balcony is small and wooden. That is why, when I heard that there was a competition to cook a dish made almost entirely of pork, it made sense to crack out the fire or, in this case, the smoke. It had to be 8 hour, slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pig also known as pulled pork.

But what to serve with the pulled pork and how to elevate it above humble pig sandwich? These were the questions that plagued me in the days before my Pork Off cook-off. The dish had to contain three different cuts of pig and thus far I had only settled on one: the shoulder. Then, whilst eating a banh mi and marvelling at the way they had made more space for meat by removing some of the bread's middle, it hit me - why not make piggy chow, a porked up bunny chow? It was the South African DNA again.

So here is my entry - it is not an elegant dish nor is it particularly refined but it is fun to make, delicious and will give you enough pulled pork to feed a small army for a week. 

Piggy chow

8-hour balcony-smoked pulled pork with a brined BBQ pork chop and trotter baked beans.

Ingredients 

Pulled pork

3 kg bone-in shoulder of pork

1 tablespoon of sweet smoked paprika

1 tablespoon of salt

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

1 teaspoon of cayenne

Trotter baked beans

2 trotters

500g beans

2-3 tablespoons of black treacle

2 onions, quartered with a clove stuck into each quarter

1-2 tablespoons brown sugar (depending on how sweet you want the result to be)

1 tablespoon of English mustard

Pork chop

2 pork loin chops

1 bottle of nice cider

a small ish handful of salt

BBQ sauce

Tomato ketchup

Tomato paste

Cider vinegar

Peach jam

Treacle

Maple syrup

Liquid smoke

Soy sauce

Worcestershire sauce

Brown sugar

Golden syrup

Hot sauce

Whiskey

Salt

Potato or corn starch mixed with a little cold water

Pickles

About 250g of small pickling cucumbers cut into slices

Enough cider vinegar to cover cucumbers

Half an onion

Small sprig of dill

1 teaspoon of yellow mustard seeds

1 teaspoon of juniper berries

1 loaf of crusty white bread

The night before

Soak the beans in plenty of cold water. Make the pickles by slicing onions and cucumbers and mixing with cider vinegar and herbs.

Go to bed early. That pork is not going to smoke itself tomorrow. 

Early in the morning

Get up. Curse decision to make dish that needs so much cooking time. Wonder what you are going to do all day whilst pork is smoking. Take pork shoulder and trotters out of the fridge.

Light the fire. The coals need to be laid out so that they provide a long, slow, indirect heat to the pork. We used the encirclement method, which means making a ring of coals around the outer edge of the BBQ that enables the meat to cook slowly in the middle over a smoking box filled with wood chips. Frankly, I am not convinced these woodchips are up to much and, next time I get my smoke on, it will be over proper chunks of tree. A digital thermometer is an essential tool for judging when the fire is at the correct temperature. With the lid on, aim for an optimal internal cooking temperature of about 110 to 120 degrees. 

Whilst the fire is getting to the right temperature, make the meat rub for your pork and smear it all over the pork shoulder. 

As soon as the fire is ready and the wood chips are smoking, put pork on the BBQ and put the lid on. Having never smoked on the BBQ before, we had to play around with the vents on the BBQ to work out how open they needed to be to cook at the correct temperature: too far open and the fire was too hot, too far closed and the fire nearly died. Leave the pig smoking, checking on it from time to time to make sure it is at the right temperature. Let out a string of expletives when fire appears to have died. Successfully relight it and add more coals if it threatens to go out again. Hope that practice will improve ability to determine if fire is going out before it dies.

Whilst pig is smoking and fire is refusing to behave itself, split the trotters in half and put them in a big pan with plenty of clean water. Bring to the boil and let them bubble away for 10 minutes whilst skimming off scummy foam. After 10 minutes, add the beans and keep boiling for another 10 minutes. Hope trotters don't taste the way the kitchen seems to smell. After ten minutes, turn them down to a gentle simmer and congratulate self that hard part is almost over.

Open bottle of cider. Drink some. Think this macho-cooking-meat-over-fire malarky isn't too bad. Check on fire and feel oddly butch, secretly hoping the upstairs neighbours don't complain. Use rest of cider to make a brine by mixing with a handful (I have small girly hands) of salt. Place in dish with pork chops and find space for dish in overflowing fridge. Open another cider. Make BBQ sauce by combining ingredients in saucepan and bringing them to the boil. Play around with quantities till it tastes nice. Forget to write down how much of each ingredient went in. Curse self and BBQ sauce. Simmer for 10 minutes until thickened. Leave to cool. 

An hour later

Turn off beans. Add treacle, onions studded with cloves, mustard and brown sugar. Cover and place in oven (preheated to 140, if you are feeling organised).

Three hours later

Remove lid. Jiggle around so trotters at top. Marvel that they seem to smell better now. Feel grateful.

One hour later

Check beans are nice and thick. Season. Leave on side for later. 

Hours and hours later

Stop staring at wall and wondering when you last spent 8 waking hours in your tiny flat. Check internal temperature of pork. Find it has finally reached 88 degrees. Take pig inside and cover it in tin foil while it rests. Reheat beans. Remove pork chops from brine and grill, basting with a little of the BBQ sauce to make them look lovely and glossy. Get pickles out of the fridge. Remove pulled pork from bone by tugging at it gently with a fork - marvel at how tender it is. Slice end off loaf of bread and remove white bit from middle of bread. Make piggy chow by layering beans, then slices of BBQ chop then pulled pork. Eat with pickles and extra BBQ sauce.

Congratulate self on having made pulled pork on an inner-city balcony. Hope fumes haven't affected the quality of the meat. Enjoy...