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Forget cake, what about some MEAT?
I know, I know, this blog is becoming one of those “look at what I cooked” blogs. (I will be starting my Halloween party planning soon so I will be writing about parties again, I promise).
I apologise for that, but…you guys?
Totally look at what I cooked!
You may remember that we love to watch Man vs Food. The last few episodes we’ve seen have been stuffed full of pulled pork sandwiches, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to try. Also this week has seen my bank account completely and utterly decimated by the horrors of New School Uniform Shopping. Pork is relatively cheap and it just felt right that this Saturday night we should be sat in front of the TV, eating pulled pork sandwiches and bickering.
And so yesterday I bought a shoulder of pork, some BBQ seasoning and sauce and a disposable barbeque, I spent about a tenner.
Pork and seasoning
I added some garlic salt and some smoked paprika to the BBQ seasoning and rubbed it into… (Look. This blog post is going to have lots of references to PORK, PULLED PORK, MEATY JUICES etc, so let’s just get all the infantile sniggering out of the way now shall we?. *Waits*. Are you finished? Good, then I’ll continue)…the joint (*glares*) and placed it into the fridge overnight.
Pork with Rub. Ahem.
This morning I got up at 8 and, before I even drank a cup of coffee, took the meat from the fridge to allow it to get up to room temperature.
I chopped up a large onion and placed it into the slow cooker with some garlic and dried chillies. I added the meat to the cooker and poured in water to the halfway point of the pot and turned the heat to low.
Bubble away and make AWESOMENESS
I then went out and spent a tear inducing amount of money on shoes for the boys.
I decided to make some homemade bread rolls for the sandwiches and when I got home I got on with sticking the ingredients into the breadmaker making the dough. This dough is a sweet bread, I thought it might complement the sweetness of the pork.
Dried yeast is best for use with breadmakers
I fucking LOVE my bread maker. Look at that perfect ball of elasticy dough
Wobbly and not a perfect "round". Proper homemade bread!
Meanwhile, the pork had been cooking for 6 hours and the smell was permeating the whole house with porky goodness. As the bread rolls went into the oven there was a WAR OF SMELLS all of which were delicious (which makes a very nice change in a house of teenage boys).
You can see the steam, but you can't smell it...Poor you.
I realise that at this point this meat looks pretty disgusting. Thinking about it, I could have possibly browned the meat off before I placed it into the slow cooker, but as this meat will be shredded it feels like a bit of a waste of time.
The bread rolls emerged from the oven like little fluffy, golden beauties.
Some of these rolls now look like lady parts to me. It's all the pork talk.
After ten hours of cooking, the pork was ready. I lit my little disposable barbecue and waited for the charcoal to start to turn to grey ash. I transferred the pork into a dish and removed some of the excess fat before dousing it in shop bought BBQ sauce.
Yes, yes, it looks vile. I know.
I then tried to get the meat onto the barbecue. It immediately started breaking up as it was so tender, and this is the reason I used a disposable barbecue, the “grill” part is very fine so you’re not losing meat down great gaps. (This was FAR more by luck than judgement – but it’s true and a great tip)
Cooking in the great outdoors
I cooked the meat for about 5 minutes each side, just long enough for it to get good and smoky and then removed it from the BBQ and shredded using two forks.
Ta-Da! Pulled Pork, and it only took 11 hours.
And so our dinner was ready. I quickly made up some bananas stuffed with chocolate and wrapped in foil and placed them on the barbecue for pudding.
This is the only pic you're getting of these. They don't look pretty once cooked, but my God they taste good.
I then assembled the sandwiches, added pickles and coleslaw and sat down to stuff my face.
Looks good.
I didn’t like it. *sadface*
The boys did, and that’s a relief because they’re going to be eating the stuff for DAYS. There’s so much of it, so the next photo is Day One of pulled pork sandwiches. I suspect that by Day Four the face will be just a silent scream of desperation.
Man vs Food Party-ette
If you’re a fairly regular reader of my blog, or if you actually know me, you will know that I was very poorly for seven whole days last week. (You can read some whining about it here)
I’ve been a bore. So today I decided to treat the boys and make a spectacular MAN VS FOOD dinner.
Man vs Food is a brilliantly mesemerising TV programme from the US and stars Adam Richman as he chomps his way around the States. Each episode culminates in Adam taking on a “Food Challenge” and it is just…mind boggling. I have watched him eat pounds and pounds of burgers and fries, 12 dozen oysters, enormous MANcakes (*snigger*), pizza slices bigger than a human baby.
We love, love, LOVE the show and watch it, aghast, as a family. You can find out more here. (Also I love him)
So, I got up early this morning and had a good hunt around the internet for some authentic American recipes. I landed on a site called Soul Food and Southern Cooking and plumped for a meal consisting of:
Southern Fried Chicken
Macaroni and Cheese
Cornbread
Corn on the Cob
Homemade Lemonade
and
Peach Cobbler for dessert.
I headed off to the Supermarket and filled my trolley with abandon…
Hmmmm, plenty of high fat, low nutritional items in this baby (and a chilli plant)
On the way home we listened to the radio and Oliver suddenly asked me why the woman was singing about “choking him”. I was somewhat confused as the song playing was “Jump!” by the Pointer Sisters. Although, hilariously, it really does sound as if they’re singing “Choke HIM!” during the chorus, and so then I couldn’t stop laughing and tears were spurting out my eyes a bit and I had to pull over.
When we got home I got the chicken ready, by placing it into a mixture of full fat milk, salt and buttermilk…
milky, milky, bokey, boke.
and placing it into the fridge for a few hours.
While the chicken bathed itself like Cleopatra, I got on with making the cornbread. I’ve never even tried it before, and so was quite excited.
It’s really easy to make. You just mix together the dry ingredients of cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt in one bowl, and the wet ingredients of melted butter, egg and milk in a jug and them combine them, stir well and pop into a fairy cake tray with cases.
Easy Peasy
While the cornbread cooked, I started on the macaroni cheese. Quite frankly, I was staggered at the amount of cheese and butter the recipe called for. A stick of butter (115g) and one and a half pounds of grated cheese (500g) makes this side dish a real gut buster…
Don't even look at this photo for too long or your EYES will get fat
The cornbread had cooked, and had been tasted, an essential task for the serious cook..
I pronounce it..."Tasty"
and so the macaroni cheese headed into the oven to bubble away and turn into Certain Death By Dairy.
I was starting to flag a bit by now and decided to make a jug of lemonade, just to have a couple of glasses with a little splash of vodka in to have a taste and liven me up a little.
Vodka Optional
After a drink I felt ready to tackle the peach cobbler. *childish snigger*
The recipe called for a “Baking pan” and whatever the fuck that is, I don’t own one. I do have a silicone cake tin in the right measurements though and decided that it would probably turn out OK. I’m telling you now, that it didn’t. So if you’re planning on trying any of the recipes, I strongly urge you to buy a “Baking Pan”. Good luck with that.
This doesn't look right...
I think the problem was that you’re meant to melt the butter in the “Baking Pan” and then add the batter and the peaches; instead of melting the butter in the microwave, pouring it into the cake tin and then spooning the batter on top to form an unholy alliance of fat with a thin batter which, sort of, curdled. MMMMmmmmmmmm
“Ah Screw It!” said the vodka I and bunged it into the oven with the Macaroni Cheese to cook for an hour.
And onto the chicken. I diverted a little from the recipe online and followed some advice from Nigella Lawson about poaching the chicken in it’s milky bath before coating in flour and frying.
I cannot begin to tell you how bad this smelled. All I can do is ask you to engage your imagination and think about chicken boiling in milk and buttermilk until the liquid becomes some sort of horrific cottage cheese floating on…plasma?
Dear Lord.
Once the chicken had cooked through, I let it cool down, double dipped it in seasoned flour and egg and fried in an entire block of solidified vegetable fat. *arteries weep*
There are no words. Unless the words are "Gross Obesity"
Finally everything was ready and the table groaned with a billion calories.
That's banana ketchup in the front of this shot. Yes. (and butter)
It was all…unbelievably delicious. We couldn’t finish it all, not by a long chalk as it was all so heavily fat laden that we became full very quickly, but my GOD it was good.
Yeah, shovel it in you bloody WHALE
So for the next two weeks I will be living on rice cakes.
The peach cobbler was a freaking disaster. It looks OK in the following picture, but it hadn’t cooked through and was just..ick.
Looks OK, Tastes like uncooked cake mix. And not in a good way.
If you fancy trying some authentic soul food then check out Soul Food and Southern Cooking
You can find a handy recipe converter here.
As we ate we decided that there is definitely a great party idea here. Maybe a dinner party with a good number of guests would manage to finish the food, and the “Food Challenge” could be a stupidly hot chilli laden dip served with nachos and the person who managed to eat a certain amount in a certain time could be the “winner”
*ponders*
You could rig the house up in stars and stripes and serve lager and cocktails in teacups a la the prohibition. Maybe throw the party on the 4th of July (it’s a bit late now for me to be having these sort of revelations…but hey! there’s always next year)
In conclusion…
In the fight between Man vs Food? On this occasion Food won.
*scrape* *scrape* *scrape* *scrape*
