Northeastern Carolina Pulled Pork Sauce

Ribs and pulled pork are rich, and the best way to balance and cut the silky fatty mouthfeel is with acid. Along the coasts of North and South Carolina, "East" Carolina or the "Low Country", where barbecue probably began in the US, the locals figgered this out a long time ago. They developed a simple vinegar based sauce, probably the oldest BBQ sauce in the nation, to cut through, cleanse the palate, and enhance the flavor. The original was probably just a kiss of hot peppers and vinegar, and some pitmasters use only those two ingredients to this day. Low Country vinegar sauce is used on naked meat, without a rub, and it does double duty as both a baste (a.k.a. mop) and a sauce. A mop is brushed on the meat while it cooks to cool it and flavor it. Because it is so thin, it penetrates deep.

This is the sauce you add to a pulled pork after it has been smoked and pulled. Typical of eastern North Carolina barbecue sauces is that they do not add tomatoes or ketchup.

1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup hot water
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cayenne or hot pepper flakes

Combine water and brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Combine with remaining ingredients. Add slowly to pulled pork while mixing. It is best to combine it with the pork in a saucepan over a low heat. The pulled pork should be lightly and evenly coated, neither dry nor soupy.

Faith Note: compare to Northeastern Carolina Pulled Pork recipe in the Barbecue Bible, p. 164.

 

North Carolina Pulled-Pork Barbecue
Ruth Cousineau Gourmet June 2008, http://www.epicurious.com/

As anyone from eastern North Carolina will tell you (often passionately and at great length), barbecue means a whole hog cooked low and slow over a banked pit. The meat is pulled or chopped into moist strands, dressed with some remaining "mop" (the vinegar-and-red-pepper basting sauce), and mixed with cracklings. For us, however, the whole hog had to go. Instead, we used pork shoulder: It's easier to handle and not such a huge investment of time and money.

FMM: Use the mop recipe above and just use this recipe for instructions on cooking the meat, etc.

3 1/2 cups cider vinegar (20 fluid ounces)
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons hot red-pepper flakes
1 (8- to 10-pound) bone-in pork shoulder roast (preferably butt end) with skin

Bring vinegar to a boil with sugar, red-pepper flakes, 2 tsp salt, and 1 Tbsp pepper in a small nonreactive saucepan, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then cool. Set aside 2 cups vinegar sauce to serve with sandwiches.

While sauce cools, score pork skin in a crosshatch pattern with a sharp knife (forming 1-inch diamonds), cutting through skin and fat but not into meat. Pat meat dry and rub all over with 1 Tbsp each of salt and pepper. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before grilling.

Prepare grill for indirect-heat cooking over low heat, leaving space in middle for disposable roasting pan.

When coals have cooled to about 300°F (45 minutes to 1 hour; when most coals will have burned out), put disposable roasting pan on bottom rack of grill between the 2 remaining mounds of coals, then fill pan halfway with water. Add a couple of handfuls of unlit charcoal to each charcoal mound, then put grill rack on so hinges are over coals.

Oil grill rack, then put pork, skin side up, on rack above roasting pan. Grill pork, with lid ajar (for air, so coals remain lit), basting meat with sauce and turning over every 30 minutes (to maintain a temperature of 250 to 275°F, add a couple of handfuls of coals to each side about every 30 minutes), until fork-tender (a meat fork should insert easily) and an instant-read thermometer inserted 2 inches into center of meat (avoid bone) registers 190°F, 7 to 8 hours total.

Transfer pork to a cutting board. If skin is not crisp, cut it off with at least 1/4 inch fat attached (cut any large pieces into bite-size ones) and roast, fat side down, in a 4-sided sheet pan in a 350°F oven until crisp, 15 to 20 minutes. Note from one of the reviewers: "I cut the fat off the top and grilled it on cookie sheets in the oven till it crisped up."

When meat is cool enough to handle, shred it using 2 forks. Transfer to a bowl.

Serve pork, cracklings, and coleslaw together on buns. Serve reserved vinegar sauce on the side. [The recipe did not have a link or anything to the coleslaw recipe.]

Cooks' note:
Pork can be roasted in a large roasting pan, covered with parchment paper and then foil, in middle of a 350°F oven. Roast 1 hour, then pour 1 cup vinegar sauce over meat. Roast 1 hour more, then baste with 1 cup more sauce. Continue to roast, covered, adding water (1/2 cup at a time) to pan if needed, until fork-tender (a meat fork should insert easily), about 2 hours more. Cut off skin (see recipe above) and roast in a 4-sided sheet pan on lowest rack of oven. Meanwhile, return pork to oven and roast, uncovered, on middle rack, until meat is browned and skin is crisp, about 45 minutes more (5 to 6 hours total roasting time, depending on size of roast).

8 servings