Slow-cooked pulled pork shoulder
A 2 kg pork shoulder turns into six days of meals. Eight hours unattended, costs AUD 15-20, freezes well. The backbone of a strict-carnivore batch cook.
- Variant
- strict
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 480 min
- Serves
- 6
Ingredients
- 012 kg pork shoulder (bone-in if available)
- 023 tbsp salt (yes, that much)
- 03200 ml water
Method
Preheat the oven to 130C. Yes, low. Slow-cooked pork shoulder needs time and patience over heat.
Pat the shoulder dry. Rub the salt aggressively over every surface, including the fat cap. The salt should look like it is sitting on the meat in visible drifts — most of it works through and seasons during the long cook.
Place the shoulder fat-cap-up in a heavy roasting pan or Dutch oven. Pour the water around the base — not over the meat.
Cover with foil or the Dutch oven lid. Place in the oven and forget about it for 7 hours.
After 7 hours, remove the foil. Raise the oven to 200C. Cook uncovered for 30-40 more minutes to brown the fat cap.
Rest 15 minutes. The bone should slide out cleanly. Pull the meat apart with two forks. It should fall into shreds without resistance.
Mix the shredded meat with the rendered fat in the pan. Salt to finish if needed. Portion into containers — three days in the fridge, longer in the freezer.