Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork





In keeping with my slow-cooking kick, I decided to make pulled pork Wednesday morning. I would post the recipe but after an exhaustive search, Whole Foods has since taken it down.  Alas. If I can find it, I will repost in an edit later on.

The title of the blog was self-fulfilling prophecy that fateful morning, as I began to literally bleed, sweat, and cry through the prep process.



To begin my woeful but delicious tale, I believe I will start on my observations of slow-cooking. It appears to me that all meat-based slow-cooker recipes share a common equation:

meat + sauce + low heat + time = delicious.

And, like the jerk chicken recipe, the sauce in this case is what makes the pork shine--you basically make your own barbecue sauce in which to drench a big slab of pork.  It has three basic steps: puree, saute, and then boil. Puree onion, garlic, chipotle, adobo and pasilla peppers together with cider vinegar and honey, quickly fry the mush in a skillet to bring out their flavors, and then thin the sauce out and reduce with chicken broth.

Sounds simple enough, and yet, at each step I proceeded to leak a bodily fluid. Let's begin the deluge, shall we?



Step one, Puree: I made fast work of the prep and getting everything in the food processor. I got a little too quick with the knife during onion slicing and nearly clipped off the top of my left ring finger. It's weird being a nurse--you can have an injury and you either underwhelm or overwhelm the experience (see: it's only my left knee, who needs that? vs. AN EARACHE? THE WORLD IS OVER.)



This was one of the underwhelmed variety, as I was a woman on a mission--a visit to the first-aid kit and a quick breath later, I was back to the food processor.



*Any parent will tell you that this does not just look like ketchup...



Step two, Saute: OK, everything out of the food processor and into the pan.  For eight minutes.  I sat and stirred, and stirred, and stirred, sweating my butt off in front of a hot stove.  Not much, but just enough for dramatic effect. Again, something I could handle, but after 12 hours of work I was beginning to question the worth of trying to do serious cooking on such low energy.



Step three, Boil: Immediately prior to the crucial step of adding chicken broth to thin out the saute, tears began welling up.  The cooked peppers and onions boarded a rocket ship straight to my face, leaving me no choice but to wince, and cry profusely, in pain.  I soldiered on and added the broth, reduced by almost half, and (happily) threw the sauce over the pork and walked away.







*Le Pork pictured here in Big Bessie!



*Finally, I could walk away!

The results: spicy (but not hot), tender, and moist.  I'd have to say it was worth it in the end.  If anything, my close-calls that morning taught me a lesson: everything in moderation.  A little recklessness is good (see blog name),  but I must slow down and take my time with food--it's not always a race, nor will speed with little actual skill land me anywhere but the ER.