Friday, April 29, 2011

Looking For Pulled Pork Crockpot Recipes You Can Serve With Pride?


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If you’ve been searching the internet for pulled pork crockpot recipes to try, you may keep seeing a theme recurring over and over. It seems that there are several regions, states, and even cities that lay claim to a particular “style” of a pulled pork sandwich. The Memphis style appears very often, as does a South Carolina sandwich, and just about every state south of the Mason Dixon line.

What most everyone can agree on is that no one agrees which style of sandwich truly belongs to which region. Comparing hundreds of pulled pork crockpot recipes doesn’t help much either. For every barbecue sauce on the market there is at least one recipe. For every variation of dry rubs you can find, there are that many more methods and ingredients for cooking a pulled pork sandwich. Here are just a few common methods for cooking and serving this sandwich that seems to be everyone’s hometown original!

Vinegar – Most homemade versions of barbecue sauce for a pulled pork sandwich will include vinegar. Memphis may claim this belongs to them, but South Carolina cooks say the same thing. The tangy element of vinegar seems to be a sticking point for almost all recipes in which you make a classic barbecue sauce.

Brown Sugar – Many dry rubs contain brown sugar to give the sweet flavor to the whole sweet-sour balance that a pulled pork sandwich should have. A simple concoction of brown sugar, vinegar, and a pinch of any hot sauce or seasoning is often found in barbecue places in Florida and Alabama. Whether this simple recipe originated there we’ll never know. Although, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a pulled pork sandwich seasoned like this in Memphis.

Dry Rub – Here again the boundaries blur. South Carolina recipes often stake claim to this method of seasoning the pork. The rub is made up of a variety of spices, usually including paprika, cayenne, and lots of black pepper. Some folks say this is the only only flavoring you add to the pork. That means no barbecue sauce is mixed in with the pulled pork, only served on the side as a condiment. As a matter of fact, some folks in Memphis shudder when someone refers to this beloved sandwich as a pulled pork barbecue.

Condiments – There are several standard condiments found on most every table serving pulled pork sandwiches. A bottle of barbecue sauce is a must. Then, some people like a little red hot sauce, mustard, and salt and pepper. I have yet to see a bottle of ketchup! That just seems wrong… and it probably is. Memphis holds the honor in most people’s opinion of being the cole slaw condiment originator. If you get a “slap of slaw” on top, you’re probably enjoying a real Memphis pulled pork sandwich.

Cooking Method – Of course, using your slowcooker to make a batch of pulled pork may be quite a departure from the method your parents and their parents before them used. The most noted methods to prepare the pork include grilling, smoking, oven roasting, and braising. Different methods are claimed as original by different regions and there is no one, simple answer to this. If you go to Memphis you’ll see a lot of smoky pits with big hunks of pork sizzling away on the grill, but you’ll also see that same method in a lot of other places, so it’s hard to pin down.

Whether you’re sitting in Memphis reading this, or in Florida, or Mississippi, you’ve probably already dismissed all this nonsense about any pulled pork crockpot recipes that claim they are a certain region’s style. All I can say is that no matter where you live, if your Granddaddy made the best pulled pork sandwich ever, then that’s YOUR official recipe and don’t let anybody take that away from you!

Learning the methods for successful slowcooker cooking will help you create mouth-watering meals like slow cooker pulled pork sandwiches that will be sure to please your family.

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