A New Way to Pull the Pork

That title doesn't sound quite right but I think we'll go with it.

Pulled pork is pretty much the only crock pot recipe I know. You season up a picnic roast or butt, throw it in a crock pot with about fourteen ounces of root beer and cook it on high until the roast literally falls apart with only the slightest pull of a fork. Add sauce and you have the simplest barbecue recipe there is. Put it on a bun if you don't care about the wheat or slap it in a corn tortilla for a wonderful approximation of a street taco.

The problem I have with the dish is the root beer.  It works fine but all it's really brings to the meat is acid, caramel coloring and high fructose corn syrup. I got it in my head that there had to be a better way.

Now, I've been studying up on mead and mead production with the intent of brewing my own. I love mead and it's hard to find and sometimes expensive when you do find it. It's not a complicated process to whip up your own but it does need some equipment and a good bit of honey. So while I scrounge and save for the eventual project, I've been researching the process and getting ideas.

Apparently, when a batch of mead goes bad it turns to vinegar just like grape based wines and that vinegar can be used for cooking much the same way that red or white wine vinegar can and a popular recipe appears to be slow cooking a roast with the mead vinegar.

Well, I don't have mead vinegar since I haven't had a chance to screw up a batch of mead yet.  But I decided I could fake it easy enough.

I dissolved 3/4 cup of honey into two cups of wine wine (I used a moscato) and poured this over the pork butt roast in the crock pot. Then I added about a pound of frozen peaches.  Not sure why I did that. It just sounded good.  The crock pot cooked away on high for about eight hours and in the end it was pulled pork with a subtle undertone of the peaches and zing of the wine.

I wanted a sauce and was about to try to make a barbecue sauce from scratch when i saw the Louisiana Hot Sauce and the honey sitting on the counter.  I mixed up quarter cup of each along with a dash of cajun seasoning and that was the sauce. It echoed the flavor of the honey in the pork and pulled everything together nicely.

Out came the tortilla warmer and some white corn tortillas and it was dinner.  This along with the recent pie discovery is going to be making regular appearances throughout the holidays.