Imagining I was in some Southern state of America or perhaps on a ranch I even donned a pair of cowboy boots and sang along by the stove as if I was Shania Twain (or Carolyn Poole-not a massive shock she was booted from the fix factor) as I whipped up my slow cooked banquet.
I'd bought a shoulder of pork a few weeks back and it had laid in the depths of my freezer until one hungover Sunday I was slobbing around watching Sunday Brunch (Tim Lovejoy-what.a.man) and Simon Rimmer made pulled pork on the show. Being a Man Vs Food fan, pulled pork seems to pop up quite a bit on it and I always found myself salivating over that juicy shredded meat, so I decided I would have to give it a go.
I loosely followed a few different recipes for the pork, of course Simon Rimmer's Cajun Pulled Pork one and another by The Fabulous Baker Boys.
I made like the Sunday Brunch boys and put onions and garlic and cider on my pork, scored the fat and rubbed a variety of spices in with Nigella like fervency such as dried thyme, rosemary, paprika a pinch of cayenne pepper (pretty much all of my herb and spice cupboard) and finished off with a glug of honey and the obligatory salt and pepper.
The one thing I failed to notice was that Simon Rimmer's recipe only calls for you to cook the pork for 4 hours whereas I decided to leave mine for a mammoth 7 at 140 degrees, resulting in my onions and garlic burning to a crisp and still being unable to get the roasting tray clean. We live and learn.
Whilst having all that time on my hands, I decided to whip up some tasty side dishes. The homemade coleslaw described in the Sunday Brunch recipe, (except never being one to make life easy for myself with homemade mayonnaise) my special potato salad and a strawberry and raspberry pavlova for good measure.
I approached the homemade mayonnaise with great caution; in fact the only reason I made it was partly because I wanted to show off and mostly because I was left with 4 egg yolks after making my pavlova.
However, I found the process relatively easy, I chucked my egg yolks into the food processor, whisked them up with a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a splash of balsamic, grated garlic clove and salt and pepper
then just added vegetable oil very slowly whisking after each addition until the mayonnaise had reached the desired consistency. Et voila! Entirely homemade coleslaw!
For the potato salad, I boiled up a bag of salad potatoes until fluffy at the edges, popped them in a pan with garlic, rosemary, salt pepper, prosciutto ham and spinach and fried it all off until the ham was crispy and the potatoes nice and golden. I'm not a fan of mayonnaise (all for the love of my boyfriend and family who were coming over for tea) so I use creme fraiche in my potato salad.
I forgot to take any photos of this meal, so you'll have to take my word for it that when the pork finished cooking and came out of the oven it was DREAMY. The pork shredded away with ease and served up with some big soft rolls, the coleslaw, potato salad, some barbecue sauce and simple green salad, it made for a perfect relaxed Sunday dinner.
