Pulled Pork 2.0

 Cooler temps! Yay! Less gardening! Boo! and Yay! More comfort foods? OH YEAH! 

I've shared my recipe for pulled pork in 2012 and since then I've made some small improvements. This is another recipe that you need to prepare a bit in advance for but requires very little 'active cooking time'. This batch uses 2 pork tenderloins. I watch for a sale, buy a double pack and wack it in the freezer then the day before I want to make pulled pork I whip it in the fridge to defrost. All the wackin' and whippin' is worth it, trust me.

Bacon drippings (I cooked 4 strips of bacon this morning in a high sided frying pan for breakfast and just left the drippings in the frying pan.)

2 Pork Tenderloins (you can use shoulder as well)
1 Vidalia Onion chopped
2 Garlic Cloves sliced
1 tsp. Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground Pepper
1/4 c. dry sherry (I would have used Brandy but we're out of the the Christian Brothers' Shitty Brandy I use for cooking)

1 c. Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce - I used Sweet and Spicy

1/4 c. rice wine vinegar

1/4 c. dark brown sugar

1/4 c. sweet chili sauce - you can find this in the grocery store Asian food section - delish!

Heat up the bacon drippings over medium high heat in a frying pan. Brown the pork tenderloins on all sides. Get some deep brown coloring going on - that's where flavor lives on the color wheel.

While the pork is browning turn your crockpot to high and add the onion, garlic, salt pepper and sherry. 

Once the pork is done, remove it from the frying pan and pour the drippings into the crock pot. Cut the pork into cubes and add to the crockpot on top of the onions. 

Keep the onions on the bottom so they cook up nicely. Spread the bbq sauce, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar and sweet chili sauce over the top of the pork. AT THIS POINT YOU CAN STAY ON HIGH OR SWITCH TO LOW. 

Now go do something fun, rake some leaves, take a nap, binge watch Columbo, go shopping, reorganize the pantry!

4-6 hours later or 8 hours if you used the low setting..... Poke the pork with a fork ya dork. If it doesn't break apart easily let it cook a while longer. If it does it's time to 'pull' it. There are several options to accomplish this. You can use a food processor, a potato masher or a fork. Choose wisely and 'pull it' PULL IT REAL GOOD! Make sure everything is mixed together well. Now taste it. Good right? Does it need salt? More bbq sauce? Adjust however you like it. 

Serve this on a Kaiser Roll with some bread and butter pickles, or coleslaw or pickled jalapenos (the ones from Trader Joe's are dy-no-mite!). Boom done!