Korean Pulled Pork
This recipe is just a Korean twist on the American-style pulled pork we are all used to. However, by amending the rub and serving with kimchi and sriracha, plus a couple of other changes to the slaw, it was transformed into a whole new dish. The 1/3rd rule for rubs, using 1/3rd sugar, 1/3rd salt and 1/3rd aromatics, was applied here and by making the final 1/3rd of aromatics Korean rather than American, it made all the difference.
I’ll also make a confession up front, as this cook was for some work colleagues I didn’t in fact cook it all the way to the end, to the point of pulling, on the smoker, and this was for several reasons. Firstly, I wanted to keep as much of the juice and rendered fat as possible to make a barbecue sauce, as I was going to cook the pork, chill it and reheat when required for serving to my colleagues, stirring in the barbecue sauce as I was reheating it and pulling just before serving. Secondly, after a certain amount of time in the smoker the meat wasn’t going to take on anymore of the smoke flavour, and I was doing a fair amount of pork it was going to be much easier to finish it in the oven on the lowest setting (amusingly I used the temperature probe to check that my oven was at the temperature it should be!). The end result was as good as if it had been in the smoker the whole time, I just got more sleep in the process!
By Jason Wood
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