Gourmet Dad, Don’t Let The Title Fool You

With the warm weather sneaking in everyone started to talk about ribs, pulled pork and the likes. I love pulled pork, saw this recipe and pinned it for another time. Well today my last day of vacation was that another time. I am so glad I did, I did to have any taco or tortillas but we did have some pita pockets worked just fine. I will warn you this is a slow cooking meal and the smell is like a brisket on a cold winter day it fills the air and it is hard to keep your stomach quiet.  I made the double mistake of doing some outside choirs then walking into the house.

 Ingredients

• 4 pound boneless pork butt, fat trimmed and cut into 2 inch cubes
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. pepper
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 onion, peeled and halved
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 2 Tb fresh lime juice
• 2 C water
• 1 medium orange, juiced and keep the spent halves

How

1.  Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat to 300 degrees.  Combine all the ingredients in a large Dutch oven, including the spent orange halves and juice.  Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-high heat, uncovered.  Once it simmers, cover pot and transfer it to the oven.  Cook until the meat falls apart when prodded with a fork, about 2 hours.

2.  Remove the pot from the oven and turn on the broiler.  Use a slotted spoon to remove the meat from the pan and place it on a large foil-lined jelly roll pan.  Remove and discard everything from the pot except for the cooking liquid.  Place pot over high heat on the stove and boil until thick and syrupy, about 20 minutes.  You should have about 1 C of liquid remaining when it is finished.

3.  While the liquid is reducing, use two forks to pull each cube of pork into three equal sized pieces.

Once the liquid has become a syrup, gently fold in the pieces of pork into the pot.  Try not to break up the pork any further.

Taste and add additional salt and pepper.

4.  Spread the pork back onto the foil lined pan and evenly spread the meat around so there is a single layer of meat.  Place the jelly roll pan on the lower middle rack of the oven and broil until the top of the meat is well browned and edges are slightly crisp, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Using a wide metal spatula, flip the pieces of meat and broil the other side until well browned and edges are slightly crisp, 5 to 8 minutes.  Serve immediately in a tortilla with all your favorite toppings.

I intially thought it would be too dry but that was not an issue this was moist and tender no topping required.

Note: I squeezed some extra lime juice on it just before serving.