The Great American Slow Cooker Book (44 page)

3
Remove and discard the bones; shred the meat using two forks, bathing it in the cooking juices. Use tongs to transfer the meat to a serving platter, leaving at least some of those juices behind for your cardiologist’s sake.

4
To make the white sauce, whisk the mayonnaise, vinegar, and black pepper in a small bowl; serve on the side for drizzling over the pulled pork.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Alabama pulled pork is a thing of beauty! This is a drier version than
Basic Pulled Pork
, with less sauce but nonetheless ramped up with the smoky spices and white sauce.

•
Yep, that sauce is just mayonnaise thinned with plain, white vinegar and spiked with black pepper. Don’t use anything fancier!

•
Give the pork sauce more oomph by using cracked black peppercorns. Use even more than we suggest for a mouth-poppingly hot sauce.

•
Make this dish up to two days in advance. Refrigerate the pork and sauce separately, but cover both tightly. Reheat the pork in a tightly sealed aluminum foil packet in a 325°F oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

Serve It Up!
You’ll need toasted buns, a platter of deviled eggs, and lots of napkins! Avoid spiking the sandwiches with pickled jalapeño rings or anything very hot, since the black pepper in the sauce will provide the spark.

1
Brown the bacon in a large skillet set over medium heat until crisp at the edges, between 4 and 8 minutes depending on the size of the batch. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to the cooker, leaving its rendered fat behind.

2
With the skillet (and the luscious rendered fat) still over medium heat, brown the pork shoulder on all sides, turning it only after you’ve got a dark brown sheen with some crunchy bits on each side, about 15 minutes in all. Transfer the pork to a cutting board.

3
Add the mushrooms to the skillet, stirring often, until they release their liquid and it bubbles away, between 5 and 8 minutes. Scrape the contents of the skillet into the cooker.

4
Add the onion, bell pepper, and carrot to the slow cooker. Set the pork shoulder into the vegetables.

5
Stir the tomatoes, wine, tomato paste, oregano, rosemary, thyme, and pepper in a bowl until the tomato paste dissolves; pour over the pork shoulder and vegetables.

6
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours in a small slow cooker, 8 hours in a medium model, or 10 hours in a large one, or until the meat easily chunks into bits off the bone. Uncover and cool for 10 minutes. Use a fork to pry off hunks of the pork, place them in serving bowls, and spoon the vegetables and sauce over each serving.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Cacciatora (“hunter style”) is a popular Italian-American dish, a rustic stew of meat, tomatoes, and vegetables in an aromatic sauce. It’s often made with chicken, although we think it’s a particularly bright and yet hearty combination of flavors that match well with pork.

•
This dish is most often made with pancetta, an unsmoked but cured pork product; however, we like the smoky taste of bacon better. Switch back to the original for a lighter taste.

•
You can try to lift the pork shoulder out of the slow cooker to carve it at the table, but you’ll need good strength, large utensils, and a steady hand to keep it from falling apart (or to the floor). Send any children or pets out of the room before attempting this complicated maneuver.

1
Place the scallions, jalapeños, garlic, vinegar, ginger, brown sugar, molasses, thyme, allspice, coriander, salt, and pepper in a food processor fitted with the chopping blade; process until you have a coarse paste, scraping down the inside of the canister once or twice.

2
Rub the spice paste onto the pork shoulder. Set the pork in the slow cooker; distribute the sweet potato cubes around the pork.

3
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours in a small slow cooker, 8 hours in a medium cooker, or 10 hours in a large cooker, or until the meat is so tender that it offers no resistance to a fork.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
This jerk paste is more aromatic than fiery. Give it more heat by adding up to 1 teaspoon cayenne.

•
The pork shoulder for this recipe should be
boneless
; it’s most likely been tied at the supermarket to hold its shape. Remove the twine before serving (but not before cooking). However, if the meat comes in a netted bag, remove that bag; the roast may fall into large chunks, but these chunks can be cooked in the same manner as a whole roast.

Serve It Up!
For a
Green Bean Salad:
Steam green beans until crisp-tender, then chop them into 1-inch pieces. Toss with diced pitted green olives and thinly sliced shallot. Add plenty of olive oil, some balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and a pinch of sugar, then toss one last time.

1
Bring the wine to a boil in a medium saucepan set over high heat. Boil until reduced to a thick glaze, then pour in the milk and cream. Bring back to a boil, stirring often. Boil for 1 minute. Pour the mixture into the slow cooker and cool for 10 minutes.

2
Stir the garlic, sage, nutmeg, salt, and pepper into the milk mixture. Add the pork shoulder to the slow cooker; turn to coat.

3
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours in a small slow cooker, 8 hours in a medium cooker, or 10 hours in a large model, or until the meat falls in chunks off the bone.

4
Break the meat into serving-size chunks and move them to a serving platter. Discard the bones and any cartilage.

5
Puree the sauce: either use an immersion blender right in the slow cooker or pour the sauce into a large blender, cover, remove the center from the lid, place a clean kitchen towel over said lid, and blend until smooth, scraping down the inside of the canister at least once. Pour the pureed sauce into a large saucepan; bring to a boil over high heat. Boil for up to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, to make a richer sauce.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Because of negative charges among the molecules, milk is one of the few protein-based substances that can be boiled without coagulating. Thus, it’s a rich braising medium for pork, a rather old-fashioned Italian technique.

•
Make sure the slow cooker insert is scrupulously clean before you start; the presence of just a speck of vinegar can lead to curdled milk in the sauce. That said, the blender will take care of the unsightly problem in step 5.

ALL-AMERICAN KNOW-HOW
Keep in mind there’s a difference between grated and ground nutmeg. The grated spice is shaved off the whole nutmeg with a microplane or a nutmeg grater; it has a bright, clean fragrance, a bit woody as well as floral. The ground spice is usually jarred and has a much earthier flavor. If substituting ground nutmeg for grated, use only half the stated amount.

Serve It Up!
Serve these chunks over cooked egg noodles tossed with butter and poppy seeds.

1
Mix the cubed pork, chiles, orange juice, lime juice, garlic, and cumin in the slow cooker.