Recipes | Overnight pulled pork

Recipes

Overnight pulled pork

The problem about Father's Day being in high summer is that you don't necessarily want to be stuck in the kitchen making a slap-up meal. So camp out and make these delicious pulled pork rolls instead

The recipe comes from Genevieve Taylor's inspiring new book How to Eat Outside which gives year-round suggestions from summer picnics to bonfire night.

Genevieve writes: "I’ve often noticed that when I hold my hand over the campfire in the morning it’s still lovely and toasty (providing it hasn’t chucked it down!), so I wanted to find a recipe that would harness all the lovely gentle heat the fire gives off as it cools. This pulled pork is absolutely ideal as it cooks to perfection in the dying embers overnight. Stuff the tender tasty meat into soft baps for the most perfect Sunday brunch ever. After a long night around the campfire catching up with friends, this is just the ticket to revive you the morning after.

SERVES 6–8

5 tbsp tomato ketchup

2 tbsp soft brown sugar

4 tsp English or Dijon mustard

1 tbsp fennel seeds, roughly ground

2 tsp smoked paprika

2kg (prepared weight) pork shoulder, boned and rolled

3 large onions, thickly sliced

3 large carrots, roughly chopped

1 x 500ml bottle cider (doesn’t need to be special; any type will do)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

6–8 soft white baps, to serve

Assuming you have a cool box to keep the meat cold for a couple of days, the ideal low-fuss way is to marinate the meat at home and shove it in a ziplock food bag, so all you then have to do at the campsite is cook it.

In a small bowl, mix together the tomato ketchup, sugar, mustard, fennel seeds and smoked paprika. Rub this all over the pork, then seal it in a ziplock food bag before adding it to your cool box.

When you are ready to cook, line a Dutch oven with a triple layer of foil (to help make washing-up easier!) and scatter in the onions and carrots. Place the pork on top, season generously with salt and black pepper, then pour in the cider. Seal completely with a tight-fitting lid (add a layer of foil if your lid is a bit loose).

Place the Dutch oven directly on the dying embers of your fire, using a shovel to push the coals around the oven a little. Leave to cook overnight, about 12 hours is perfect (depending on the heat left in the fire). Have a peek inside the pot first thing in the morning to see how it’s doing. If it’s been a particularly cold or damp night, you may want to get the fire going again slowly to carry on the cooking process until brunch time. Like all fire cooking it’s a bit suck-it-and-see, and with this dish the cooler the embers are, the better – you don’t want the embers to be too hot and cook the pork too quickly.

To serve, tease the meat apart with two forks, pulling it off in pieces, and shove it into the baps. There may or may not be gravy to spoon on as well (depending on the heat of your fire and how much evaporation has occurred).

What to drink: since you're using cider in the dish that's what I'd drink with it too - or, if you're having it for lunch and feel that's a little early, apple juice would also be delicious.

Extracted from How to Cook Outside: fabulous al fresco food for BBQs, bonfires, camping and more by Genevieve Taylor, published by Bantam Press at £17.99. Photographs by Jason Ingram.


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