Pulled Pork Tacos

Pulled Pork Tacos

Summer is coming! (She says as she writes this with torrential rain beating down on her roof.) Warmer weather for me means more al fresco dining and entertaining friends, as well as a more colourful array of vegetables gracing our plates. I am a big fan of feeding large groups with fresh handmade tacos. Unfortunately the weather is still a bit shit and cold so I have decided to blend zesty Mexican food with warming Creole style southern comfort food in the form of pulled pork tacos.

I had a bit of a four-day pork bender last week. I wish that was a euphemism but, unfortunately, this pork was paired with buns of the glutinous kind. Poy boys, burgers, tacos. You name it. ALL the pork in and around my mouth. So satisfying.

I used the pork recipe from my burgers a few weeks back and I paired them with a cabbage slaw, handfuls of coriander, homemade barbecue sauce and a sloshing of Best Foods mayo all wrapped up in a fresh handmade tortilla. It is now a flat favourite with the girls eyeing up the leftovers I stored in the freezer.

Make the barbecue sauce the night before (it makes tonnes so you will have left overs for a couple of weeks afterwards), bung all the pork ingredients in the slow cooker and turn on for eight to ten hours, toss some shredded cabbage and carrot in some mayo and roll out the tortillas and you are good to go.

Ingredients


Pulled pork:
1 kg pork shoulder chop or steaks, fat trimmed;
2 large onions, sliced;
3 sticks of celery, finely chopped;
6 cloves of garlic, minced;
330ml beer;
2 cups water;
2 tablespoons brown sugar;
Bunch of coriander;
Spice rub (below); and
½ cup barbecue sauce (below).

Spice rub:
2 tablespoons brown sugar;
1 tablespoon each of: ground coriander, ground cumin, paprika;
1 ½ teaspoons each of: oregano, smoked paprika, salt; and
½ teaspoon black pepper.

Barbecue sauce:
1 splash olive oil;
4 cloves of garlic, minced;
2 teaspoons crushed chilli;
1 onion, finely diced;
1 tablespoon smoked paprika;
½ teaspoon mustard powder;
¼ cup malt/cider/white or red wine vinegar;
¼ cup tomato paste;
1 cup (or a large tin) of tomato sauce;
2-3 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce; and
Salt to taste.

Cabbage slaw:
¼ red cabbage, shredded;
¼ green cabbage, shredded;
2 carrots, julienned with one of those nifty peelers that make carrot ribbons; and
1/3 cup Best Foods Mayonnaise.

Fresh flour tortillas:
1 ½ cups plain flour;
1 teaspoon salt;
¼ teaspoon baking powder;
¼ cup + a splash vegetable oil; and
½ cup boiling water.

To serve:
Handfuls of fresh coriander; and
More mayonnaise.

Method


To make the barbecue sauce, sauté the onion in the olive oil over a medium heat until translucent. Then add the garlic, chilli and spices. Cook for a few minutes before adding the tomato paste, stir then add in the vinegar, tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce and salt and simmer while stirring for 15 minutes. Leave to cool then refrigerate.

Start the pork just over nine hours before you want to serve it. Mix together the rub ingredients and rub into the pork chops. Heat a frying pan to a medium heat with a splash of oil and sear both sides of the meat pieces for about a minute each side. Place the onions, celery and garlic in the bottom of the slow cooker. Place the pork over the top, sprinkle over the salt and sugar and any remaining spice rub. Pour over the beer and water and leave to cook on high for nine hours, stirring every couple if you are around. Once the meat starts falling to pieces, tear it apart with two forks and leave to cook until the sauce has thickened. At this point stir in the barbecue sauce and leave to cook for the remaining time that is left.

To make the slaw, toss all the required ingredients in the mayonnaise.

To make the tortillas, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. You may need a bit more water and oil to bring it together into a nice smooth ball. Knead for a few minutes then pop it back in the bowl and cover with glad wrap for 20 minutes to rest it. Heat up a clean, dry frying pan to the highest temp you can get it. Take ping pong ball sized blobs of dough and roll out until they are thin enough to just see the bench colour beneath them. Place them on the hot pan one at a time until each side starts getting those attractive brown spots on it. Leave under a clean tea towel while you cook the rest. This should make around 12 tortillas.

Assemble your tacos by smearing the base with a bit of mayo and barbecue sauce. Spoon on the pulled pork followed by a healthy dosing of mayonnaise covered vegetables and a sprinkling of coriander.
This article first appeared in Issue 22, 2014.
Posted 11:52pm Sunday 7th September 2014 by Sophie Edmonds.