One Roast -- Four Sequestered Meals

Favored caption: Low and Slow
Alternate caption: Wash Me!

We keep our Big Green Egg on a very open, covered patio, which allows me to use it without much regard to weather. When taking the photo above, I realized that it means this vital cooking machine never gets a rinse.

Anyway, the key to this ancient cooking method is to get the temperature right and then leave it alone. In this case, the idea was to stay as close to 250F as possible over the course of 5 hours. At 4 hours I realized I had let it dip just under 200, but I opened the vents and got it back up to about 275, and left it for an extra half hour.

The entire time it was smoking -- complete with some hickory chips -- I did not once check on the pork shoulder inside. I was able to restrain myself because I had succeeded in 2017 with a pork butt, which I described in detail in There's the Rub!

We buy a small amount of local, naturally raised meats, rather than a large amount of cheap, factory-raised meat. The "it" in the previous paragraph is free-range, local pork shoulder from Crescent Ridge in Sharon, where most of the meat we buy comes from. Most of the rest comes from J.H. Beaulieu in Fairhaven.

Spicehound, by way of Crescent Ridge

This time I followed essentially the same process, with different details. The rub was an almost random mix of about ten savory spices at hand, plus a bit of chili-cocoa powder. (Yes, that is something likely to be in our kitchens at any time, without a special shopping trip.) I gave myself a break and included barbeque sauce in our Crescent Ridge order. Shortly before removing the roast, I whisked -- over medium-low heat -- some of the sauce with a ginger-honey white balsamic from (you guessed it) our friends at L.O.V.E. 

Something I neglected to describe in the 2017 post is how to pull the pork. While it is very hot and tender, it can be shredded easily in the pan with two forks. I shredded just enough for what we would need that evening and the next afternoon.

Two More Meals

I am writing this during the current pandemic because it is not only a Big Green Egg story -- it is more importantly a story about finding ways to eat well with what is in the house, in order to reduce shopping trips. Our state is a leader in adhering to social distancing, and our county is a leader within the state. This means we are doing pretty well at following not only the letter of the regulations -- keeping only essential businesses open -- but also the spirit: making VERY efficient use of our time in those businesses. So during this crisis we have spread out our typically frequent trips to be a week or more apart, buying a variety of foods that can be combined in different ways to keep meals interesting and to preclude dashing back in for one or two items (which I usually do several times a week).

This evening was exhibit A: I had bought some tortillas and several different cheeses. I had one specific dish in mind -- my famous sweet-potato quesadillas -- but also a vague notion that we would find something to do with the rest.

And thus was born the pulled-pork quesadilla! I should have taken a photo of process. Because the pork had now been in the fridge a couple of days, it was not fork-tender. I heated some oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet and put a hunk of the pork shoulder in, over medium heat. I then used a fork and small knife to pull the pork and occasionally slice it, until it was in small enough chunks to facilitate two-fork pulling. Once it was heated through, I added about a quarter-cup of water to the pan and simmered for a few minutes so that the pork would be especially tender again. Because of the rub, I had no need to add spices at this stage. While heating a small amount of oil on our cast-iron griddle, I divided the pork between two tortillas (staying on one half of each -- I should have taken a photo).

And one more meal to come. Whenever I talk to my mom by phone in Annapolis, she asks -- knowing that we cook. a lot -- "What you having good for dinner?" And with the pandemic we're talking more often than usual.  On Saturday, I replied that I was roasting the pork shoulder, and she started talking about pot pies. We had many, many of the Swanson frozen variety when I was a kid, but then a couple times a year she would make one for real.

So that is what is going to happen with the remainder of this roast: good ol' Virginia pot pie with a flaky crust top, vegetables, and white sauce. I think I want a few more vegetables, so we are going to freeze this just for a bit -- to make better use of a shopping trip a week or so from now.