Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Pulled Pork and Corn Puddin'

Yeah, I know, "pulled pork, again?"

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I won't bore you with the whole process since I've done many smoked pork shoulder posts on here (click for my basic process) but I will post up the log at the bottom.   I did try a new injection and served it with a southern classic, so I'll tell you about that.  

But first, this weekend Kathleen and AJ of Smoky Mountain Cafe had Larry and Beverly of Big Dude's Eclectic Ramblings and me over for dinner.   It was great to get together but we also had business to tend to.  It was time to start planning the 3rd annual East Tennessee blogger get together at Almost Heaven South.  

After fun events the two previous years, Katherine Aucoin, Chris Grove, and Larry Doolittle are pleased that we will be able to host a blogger party again this year. The date we’ve selected is May 27 – we realize this is Memorial Day weekend and thought the extra day for travel might make it easier for some to be here.
The event will once again be held at Bev and Larry’s home near Greenback, Tn. and the menu will be a crawfish and shrimp boil – if you’re not a shellfish eater, come anyway and we’ll grill you something. Unlike previous times, we’ll be asking for a donation to help with the meat costs.
We’ll send out more details in early April but wanted to get on your calendar now. We’ll be asking for an RSVP later, but so we can start our planning, please let Larry know now if you think you might join us – email grandpop1@yahoo.com. Also please feel free to publicize this on your blog to reach more potential attendees. We hope you can join us.

Back to pork.  Usually I use Chris Lilly's famous pork injection recipe but it was 5 in the morning and I didn't have any apple juice.  I wanted something a little sweet and salty.  Here is what I came up with and it worked very well.  

Sweet Beer Pork Shoulder Injection
source:  Nibble Me This
yields:  1 1/2 cups, enough for one 7-9 lb pork butt

Ingredients

Instructions
  1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly together.
  2. Inject into 12-15 places on the top and bottom of the pork butt

A classic Southern barbecue side dish is corn pudding.   This night I chose to use the corn pudding I saw at Steph's Plain Chicken.   Funny story about that.  When Alexis was first eating it, I asked what she thought, before I had tried it.

"It has an interesting texture," she replied.

Uh oh...."interesting".  Everything I have ever made from Plain Chicken has been good so what was the problem?  It wasn't horrible but the texture was "off".  I had cut the original recipe in half and double checked my conversions.  Then I saw it.  In my hand written notes, I left off BAKING POWDER from the original recipe.  Yeah, that KIND OF makes of difference, doesn't it?  I remade it tonight WITH BAKING POWDER and it was as fantastic as I expected.

Corn Pudding
source:  slightly adapted from Plain Chicken

Ingredients
  • 2 Tbsp sugar
  • 1.5 Tbsp all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 cup cream
  • 1/4 cup butter melted
  • 1 1/2 tsp Tabanero Hot Sauce
  • 3 cups corn kernels, drained
  • 1/4 cup roasted red peppers, diced
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350f.
  2. Mix the first four ingredients together.
  3. Whisk the eggs, cream, hot sauce, and butter together.  Whisk in the dry mix from step 2.
  4. Stir in the corn and peppers.
  5. Pour into a 2 liter greased casserole dish and bake for 60 minutes.

Two big boneless pork butts.  I cut one in half to use for pork roasts later.

Getting the Egg fired up with coal, cherry wood, and hickory wood.  At this point the smoke has gone from white to "sweet blue".  It's hard to get a picture of this during daylight, it looks invisible.     

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I didn't realize the butts were boneless, a first for me.  Tied and seasoned.

Fine tuning my Egg before I put my butt on it.  

Courtesy of Brian and Marilyn Meagher of Hot Sauce Daily.

bbq buffet, pulld pork buffet, smoked pork, grill dome bbq
I used an oven thermometer because my gut told me my thermometer might be off.  Actually it was spot on.

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Once a pork butt hits 195-200f, it will pull or shred easily.
smoked pork, grill dome bbq, times and temps
Graph of data from this cook.  Yellow line is meat internal temp.  
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BBQ pork, corn pudding, and Bush's Sweet Mesquite Grilling Beans.
Product notes - 
  • Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce - It's kind of like teriyaki sauce, only better.  I buy ours at Sam's Wholesale Club.
  • Tabanero Hot Sauce - I got a bottle from our friends at the website Hot Sauce Daily, Brian and Marilyn Meagher in a care package they sent us. It pairs my favorite sweet flavor agave nectar in a hot sauce.  I like the result, a lot of flavor.
  • Bush Beans Sweet Mesquite Grillin' Beans - The newest flavor of Grillin' Beans, sweet and slightly smoky.  I am lucky to be in Knoxville, the home of Bush Beans, where I can already buy this flavor from my local Food City.
[Standard Disclaimer]  I received no compensation for this post.  I got the Tabanero sauce for free from personal friends.  I have a business relationship with Bush's Beans but this is NOT a sponsored post.  I have used Bush Beans for over 15 years when my mom told me to use their Baked Beans to make her barbecue bean recipe.