Recipes

North Carolina-Style Pulled Pork Sandwich

Barbecue is a noun and in North Carolina it is defined as pulled pork with a distinctive tangy vinegar sauce—no sweet tomato sauce allowed! The pork is either “pulled” into pieces or chopped with a meat clever and dressed with the sauce. It is served on a cheap white hamburger bun topped with a simple slaw of chopped green cabbage dressed with the same vinegar sauce.

Grilling Method: Indirect/Low Heat

Hickory wood chips, soaked in water for 30 minutes
1 Pork Butt, Boston Butt or untrimmed end-cut pork shoulder roast, 7 to 9 pounds
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Olive oil
Lexington-Style BBQ Sauce (see below)
North Carolina Coleslaw (see below)
1 package plain white hamburger buns

Prepare either a charcoal or gas grill for indirect cooking.

Remove pork from wrapper. Do not trim any excess fat off the meat, this fat will naturally baste the meat and keep it moist during the long cooking time. Brush pork with a thin coating of Olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside on a clean tray until ready to cook.

Before placing the meat on the grill, add soaked wood chips. Place chips directly on white-gray ash briquettes or in the smoking box of your gas grill. For more tips on smoking on a gas grill, see sidebar. If using a charcoal grill, you will need to add charcoal every hour to maintain the heat.

Place pork in the center of the cooking grate fat-side up. Cook slowly for 4 to 5 hours at 325-350°F, or until an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into the middle of the pork registers 190°F-200°F. The meat should be very tender and falling apart. If there is a bone in the meat, it should come out smooth and clean with no meat clinging to it. (This is the real test for doneness on the barbecue circuit.) Remember, there is no need to turn the meat during the entire cooking time.

Let meat rest for 20 minutes or until cool enough to handle. Using rubber food-service gloves, pull meat from the skin, bones and fat. Set aside any crispy bits (fat) that has been completely rendered and looks almost burned. Working quickly, shred the chunks of meat with two forks by crossing the forks and “pulling” the meat into small pieces from the roast. Alternately, you can chop the meat with a cleaver if you prefer. Chop the reserved crispy bits and mix into the pulled pork. While the meat is still warm, mix with enough Lexington-Style BBQ Sauce (recipe follows) to moisten and season the meat, about ¾ cup. The recipe can be made in advance up to this point and reheated with about ¼ cup additional sauce in a double boiler.

Serve sandwich style on a white hamburger bun and top with North Carolina Coleslaw (recipe follows). Serve additional sauce on the side, if desired. Serves 10
Lexington-Style Vinegar Sauce
North Carolina Barbecue (pulled pork) is distinctive and much revered because of the tangy vinegar sauce. The sauce enhances the smoky flavors of the meat without becoming the dominant flavor like some styles of barbecue sauce. The cider vinegar is mixed with two kinds of sugar, a touch of ketchup, salt and three kinds of pepper adding notes of sour, sweet, salt and a bit of heat to the unctuous smoky slow-cooked pork. This is not a sauce to be tasted on its own but mixed in with the hot-off-the-grill meat since it literally makes the pork sparkle. The vinegar sauce cuts through the smoke and the natural fats to balance the dish and deliver a very clean pure pork flavor. It really proves the age-old adage that the sum of the parts is greater than the parts alone.

Lexington-Style BBQ Sauce:
This sauce is a sweetened-up version of the Eastern North Carolina Sauce. It is traditionally used to dress pulled pork from Lexington, NC, west to the Mountains.

2 cups cider vinegar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground white pepper
½-1 tablespoon red pepper flakes (the more flakes, the hotter the sauce*)
2 tablespoons white sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ cup ketchup

Mix all ingredients together and let sit at least 10 minutes or almost indefinitely in the refrigerator. (*Note, the longer the sauce sits, the hotter it gets since the heat from the red pepper flakes is brought out by the vinegar. Start with ½ tablespoon red pepper flakes and then add more to taste. )
Eastern Carolina-Style BBQ Sauce:
This Eastern-style sauce is little more than vinegar and red pepper. It is the simplest of the Carolina sauces, and the most piquant which is why it is sometimes diluted (like I did here) with water. This simple mixture is also referred to as “dip” because the pork gets dipped into the sauce to moisten and season it after it has been pulled or chopped.

2 cups cider vinegar
1 cup white distilled vinegar
1 cup water
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
½ tablespoon red pepper flakes (the more flakes, the hotter the sauce*)

Mix all ingredients together and let sit at least 10 minutes. The sauce will keep almost indefinitely in the refrigerator. (*Note, the longer the sauce sits, the hotter it gets since the heat from the red pepper flakes is brought out by the vinegar. Start with ½ tablespoon red pepper flakes and then add more to taste. )

North Carolina Coleslaw:

1 recipe BBQ sauce
1 medium head green cabbage, chopped

Mix sauce and cabbage together until well mixed and not quite wet. Refrigerate. Let sit 2 hours or overnight.