Cycle 4 – Item 78

24 (Sun) March 2013

Pulled Pork Baguette Sandwich

1.5

by me

at the cabin

-Changchon, Seowon, Hoengseong, Gangwon, Republic of Korea-

with DJ, Mom, Uncle M

With an eye towards the upcoming spring camping and/or cookout season, I’m trying to expand my barbecue repertoire.  In particular, along the lines of my Gold Mountain Pork Bellies, I hope to develop a few more dishes in the set-it-and-forget-it mode involving big blocks of meat cooked slow and low.  No more sitting/standing around a grill and flipping/basting pieces.  Barbecuing on a large scale makes it much easier to feed crowds of hungry people at once and also comes with a significant wow factor guaranteed to impress the local yokels, who are still relatively unfamiliar with the grandeur of American big-time BBQ.

Following the beef brisket last week, I tried making pulled pork this time.  In both cases, I was concerned more about experimenting with times/temperatures/techniques to optimize the meat’s texture, which is the more difficult and arguably the more important task in barbecuing.  I’ll deal with taste later.

I did the pork in an oven (being at the cabin).  Again, I overcooked the meat somewhat but confirmed that indoor gas-powered baking is a viable, and certainly more convenient, alternative to barbecuing outdoors with live heat.

The sandwich was kinda meh.  While the meat pulled apart as designed, it was dry.  The addition of BBQ sauce restored the moisture, but the flavor was overwhelming.  Also, the dense/chewy baguette was the wrong type of bread; it should’ve been something soft/squishy, like a hoagie roll or burger bun.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)