Oven roasted pulled pork tacos

Tuesdays are usually taco day in the chocolatesuze residence. Usually the not-so-authentic Old El Paso stuff from the supermarket with mince beef and a crapload of cheese but after watching several episodes of Man vs Food I have developed a fascination of pulled pork. According to wiki: ‘the pork, (usually shoulder cut) is cooked using a low-heat, long-cook method. With these extended times at low temperatures, the meat becomes tender enough that its weakened connective tissue allows the meat to be “pulled”, or easily broken into individual pieces.’


So I bought a 2kg pork shoulder (no bone) from the butchers the other day. I don’t have a pressure cooker and the crazy rain meant I wasn’t going to use the bbq so good ol oven recipe was needed. Except I have issues with sticking to recipes when there’s so much out there on the interwebs haha so i mixed 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup of salt together and gave the pork a good rub and left it to sit in the fridge for 6 hours. After the 6 hours the porky will be sitting in a pool of liquid but do not discard! Preheat oven to 120C before sticking it in the oven skin/fat side up for 8 hours.


Yep 8 loong loooooong hours later and the porky is done! Dun worry he’s not burnt and don’t stab him halfway thru cooking ‘just to see’! Baste the porky every coupla hours with the liquids its sitting in.


It’s shredding time! Pork so freaking tender that it falls apart using just a fork!


Oh baby. Sometimes when I cook I weep.


Remnants. The skin was uber chewy but it’s better to roast the pork with the skin on cos it’ll prevent the pork from drying out with it’s fatty goodness and is heaps easy to remove once roasted. Also don’t chuck out the juices- that stuff is liquid gold man! Spoon about a quarter of it onto your shredded pork pile. I also added a tablespoon of bbq sauce so it was super juicy 😀


Assembling time! Btw see those tortillas I bought? Yeah don’t use those. If I could be bothered I would’ve made the tortillas from scratch. Instead I had to run out and go buy some fresh lebanese bread which was super tasty but a bit thick and freaking huge.


Obviously I didn’t know what the tortillas tasted like when I was assembling my first one lol anywhos… whacking the taco time! (Oh George why do people make you say such cringe worthy lines on Masterchef?)


But chuck on some porky goodness, add your salsa (I used tomato, red capsicum, lime and coriander), teensy bit of shredded lettuce, a scattering of cheese, slices of avocado, some cut chillis, a dollop of sour cream and away you go!


How about a shot of tequilla? Sure! Don’t mind if I do. Perfect.