Pulled Pork- Not suitable for Vegetarians aka Colleen

The trick to this recipe is getting the temperature correct.  Therefore, you are best off, having a thermometer to know when your pork is ready.

Zok has been making pulled pork from 'pork shoulder'.

The first time, he marinated the meat in the refrigerator overnight as he wanted at least 12 hours of marinating.  He now insists that between 10-12 hours is needed.

We actually had somewhere to be (observing beer brewing which we will blog about here) so he set the oven to a low temperature and left the house with the pork cooking.  We knew we would only be gone 4 hours.  This first piece took six hours to get to the correct temperature.
However, He used this 6 hour gauge for the second piece, which was .5 kilo larger, yet it took less time to get to temperature.

The second time he put it in when we went to sleep, at midnight, thinking it would wake him around 7 a.m.  but the thermometer alarm woke him at 4:30 a.m. (I slept through this adventures unconcerned).

Here is the recipe which he put together by looking at blog posts, and epicurious.

2.3 Kilos of Pork Shoulder

Dry Rub:

2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp garlic powder

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp ground pepper

2 tbsp paprika

3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. crushed dry (any type of hot) pepper

Mix your ingredients together in an air tight container.

Brine solution:

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 quarts cold water

3 bay leaves

3 tbsp of your dry rub mix

This is the amount he used to work with the 2 kilo (give or take a few grams)-
Zok bought pork shoulder that was boneless as we are currently in Sweden and boneless was the only option.  There are food halls in town that sell just meat, but no butcher shops like we would go to in Tasmania.
Also for the most part, even meat is imported.  We looked for Swedish pig meat but no pieces were over a kilo.  Zok used pieces that were about 2 kilos.

Rinse your meat and put it in a large container, Zok had made his dry rub and brine solution already and set them aside.  Therefore he picked a large bowl that the meat could marinate overnight in the refrigerator.  He made sure his brine solution completely covered the meat, covered it with plastic wrap.
Most recipes suggested 8 hours, Zok wanted at least 10 hours.

Whatever you decide, your next step s to take out the meat from the brine solution and pat away the excess moisture with paper towels.
Place your meat into a baking pan that is bigger than the piece of meat by a least an inch on each side and three inches from the top.
Now take the rest of your dry rub and sprinkle the pork all over, massaging the rub to thoroughly coating all sides.
*When you are through make sure to face the fatty part of the meat up in the pan.
Place the meat uncovered into your oven.

Zok set the over to110 Celsius and then let the meat reach 93 Celsius
(this would be about 230 F. oven temp. and 200 F. on the cooked meat)

Each time we have made this, we have also made beans, tortillas with all the trimmings.  This way there was plenty of food for the vegetarians, and corn tortillas for the gluten intolerant.
Seriously every meat eater has looked at me with pity in their eyes, and commented on how sad they felt for me.  I can't seem to explain how little I even think about meat.