Pulled Pork and Barbecue Sauce

This was inspired by "Diners, Drive-In's and Dives" on Sky's Food Network channel. It doesn't follow a specific recipe and the quantities and ingredients are adjusted to suit UK availability, but follows the basic principle.

Ingredients

Pork	Barbecue Sauce (see note 3)
700 gm Pork Shoulder (approx)	1 tbspn cider vinegar
Spice Rub (see note 3)	1 tspn dijon mustard
1 tbspn paprika	3 tbspn tomato ketchup
2 tspn salt	1 tbspn brown sugar
½ tspn garlic powder	1 tspn garlic powder
1 tspn brown sugar	½ tspn cayenne pepper
1 tspn yellow mustard powder	1 tspn liquid smoke (see note 2)
	¼ tspn salt
	black pepper to taste

Preparation

Pulled Pork
If it is used, remove the elastic string 'sack' from the pork shoulder.
In a bowl mix together the paprika, salt, garlic powder, brown sugar and mustard powder.
Put the pork shoulder in a suitable container and rub the spice mix over all the pork surfaces.
Cover and allow to marinate in the fridge for as long as possible e.g. overnight in the refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 150°C.
Remove the 'rubbed' pork shoulder from its container and put in a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 4 hours, then turn off the heat and leave the pork in the oven to cool.
Remove from the oven and, using two forks, pull the pork shoulder into shreds (see note 1).
Barbecue Sauce
In a bowl mix together all the sauce ingredients plus 100 ml of water and allow to rest for as long as possible.

Cooking

Pour the sauce into a saucepan with the pulled pork and heat through, stirring occasionally, for 5 - 10 min.

Serving

Remove the pork from the sauce, leaving behind as much sauce as possible, and transfer to a serving plate. Serve with mashed potatoes and vegetables of choice, pouring the remaining sauce into a 'depression' made in the mashed potato and also over the pulled pork.

Notes

(1) The shredded (pulled) pork will be too much for one person, so separate into individual portions and refrigerate or freeze the unused portions. The 700 gm pork shoulder will cook down to about 400 gm, so split into 4 equal portions of 100 gm.
(2) Liquid smoke can vary in strength and the quantity used here suits the one from 'Stubs' as pictured. It comes in a variety of flavours including Hickory and Mesquite. This can be difficult to obtain in the UK but I purchased mine via Amazon.
(3) A great variety of spice rubs and barbecue sauces can be used and the ones described here just a suggestion. The book "Barbecue Bible" by Steven Raichlen (available from Amazon) contains dozens of others to suit any taste.

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