This pork shoulder was perfect. It had a long smoke on the Kamado Joe in the middle of a Naperville winter, snow all around the dome and steam rolling off the top. (That was the Kamado I had dug out of a drift earlier in the week. The footage of that went into my Peruvian chicken post without asking.)
When the foil came off, the bark was black, crusted and exactly right. Out came the claws, then a couple of forks, and it fell apart in the blue roasting pan the way pulled pork is supposed to.
That should have been the end of it. Pulled pork on a bun, job done. But it was Super Bowl Sunday, there was a mountain of the stuff, and I had an idea.
The idea
Chilli. My own Over the Top Chilli post says that leftover pulled pork “will work”, so I fried down peppers and onions, built a red chilli base with kidney beans, and stirred the pork in.
It does not work. Everything that made that pork great, the shreds with their crusty smoky edges, simmered down into mush and stringy threads. The chilli looked the part and I hated it. The pork was ruined.
The lesson
Never make chilli out of great pulled pork. Once it has been smoked and pulled, leave it alone. Whatever you do to it afterwards can only make it worse, and I’ve never done it again. If you want a chilli, start from raw meat and let it earn its place in the pot.
Here’s the whole sorry saga in under a minute and a half:
0 comments on “How to Ruin Perfect Pulled Pork”Add yours →