The Pulled-Pork Sandwich | Sybaritica
This is a bit of a departure from the usual sort of fare I feature here but this experiment will allow me to feature some of the ‘Pulled-Pork’ I had left resulting from my recent Sunday Gravy Project post.
To be honest, neither my wife or I have been keen on pulled-pork the few times we have been served it but I have always wanted to give it a try in my own kitchen. Accordingly, in this post, not only will I get to test my own version, I will also get to show you a use for the Sweet Onion Shreds I introduced you to recently and, as a little bonus, share a simple but interesting trick at the same time…
The Makings…
- A Kaiser roll, split, toasted on a ridged grill pan and buttered;
- 1 handful Pulled-Pork;
- ¼ cup (or so) of Sweet Onion Shreds;
- A few leaves of lettuce;
- ¼ cup of your choice of BBQ sauce (see below)
The ‘trick’ I mentioned above involves the BBQ sauce. I wanted to a traditional sort of pulled-pork sandwich (which mostly seem to involve sweet BBQ sauces), but I rarely buy commercial versions and didn’t want to be bothered making one for scratch just for this limited use. However, I remember reading somewhere, many years ago, that you can quickly cobble together a pretty serviceable BBQ sauce just by mixing regular ketchup with HP sauce… It’s a simple little trick, but the beauty is that you can adjust the sweetness, or the spiciness, just by varying the ratios to taste!
Actually, in this case, rather than use a commercial ketchup, I decided to use a bit of my ‘Sunday gravy’ instead and mixed it at a 2 to 1 ratio with the HP Sauce. I thought about adding a little sugar to mimic the sweetness of ketchup but then decided do without…
The Method
Beyond toasting the bread, and the actual assembly, the only actual work involves mixing the sauce with the pork and giving it a few seconds in the microwave to get it hot. Afterwards, it is just a matter of placing the lettuce on the bottom of the roll, topping it with the pork, the onions, then the lid and… voila!
The Verdict
Well, as you can see in the first picture, I served this with fries (which seemed a natural) and dug in… On the whole, I have to say it wasn’t the best pulled-pork sandwich I’ve had, but, on the other hand, it was, to my mind, no worse than any I’ve been served yet either. It was a bit sloppy, as they often are (and this is not a quality I enjoy in a sandwich even though others do), but, most of all, I just couldn’t get excited about the whole taste experience. Aficionados may have all sorts of criticisms of this production but, honestly, I think I did a pretty good facsimile… Ultimately, I just wasn’t converted. Still, I’m glad I gave it a try…
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