Friday, January 23, 2015

Hammed-Up Pulled Pork Nachos!!

My apologies, for it has been faaaar too long since my last post!  Fear not, my loyal army of readers!  2015 is going to have more posts & w/ better pics!   For now, feast your eyes on these pulled pork pizza & nachos!!











Is any other meat on earth is as tasty & versatile as pork?!?
  Hell no!
So! Go get yourself some pork butt from your local meat monger and get ready to make some hammed-up pulled pork!!!

Into a bag go the chunks of meat!

Tonight's starting lineup! Roasted Garlic & Herb seasoning, KC Style BBQ Rub, Fresh ground black pepper, and Morton's Tender Quick Home Meat Cure (the difference-maker between pork and ham!).


Whaddayamean you don't have any meat tenderizer?!  Click on the link above and buy ANYTHING after that on Amazon and yours truly gets a little kick-back! 

Now hit the meat w/ those spices!

Toss in a bit of each or whatever spice blend you prefer!
The ones that I showed above are what I typically go with when I'm going for a "classic" BBQ rub, with the addition of the meat tenderizer to transmogrify the pork into ham! 
Once rubbed and lubed w/ a bit of oil, stoach the meat in the fridge for a few days to let the love happen! 

A few days later, we're ready to smoke some meat!

Fire up that smoker and get your meat in there!
Typically, I find that most meat only needs about 3 hrs of alone-time in the smokebox before it's time to chuck it into the pressure cooker to finish it up!

Roughly 3 hrs later, this is what the pork is looking like!

Mmm... pooooork!!!

More seasonings and a coupla onions, why not?!
Don't forget to throw in any leftover au jus from the last batch of pulled pork that you've got stashed in the freezer!

Ka-Pow!   45 minutes at full pressure in the pressure cooker and it's done!

WooHoo!  This meat is falling off the bone!  Be careful though!  It'll be hotter than hell when you first open the pressure cooker, so resist the urge to start picking at it right away!

Sorry about the inconsistency w/ the white balance in my photos!
I *just* built a new lighting rig that will make future blog posts look waaaaay better! :)

Once the meat is cool enough to handle, it should just fall apart nicely into some really spectacular pulled pork! Be sure to toss out any bone fragments and big chunks of fat as you go!

 Though the smoke does normally pinken-up the meat a bit, the meat cure "hams" it up and therefore imparts a ham-like color and taste to the meat as well!  

6 lbs of pork yielded one full gallon size Ziplock bag of hammed-up pulled pork!
This stuff is SO versatile!  Now the fun begins!!

I decided to level-up a take-n-bake pizza from Sam's Club w/ a buncha pulled pork!

Pulled pork, green pepper, onion, and, of course, extra cheese!! Woot!

NOW we're talkin'!!

Who wants a slice of this sexy pork pie?!?! 

Hammed-up Pulled Pork Nachos, anyone??

The most important thing when making nachos is to make sure that every square inch of real estate has plenty of meat and cheese!

Looks good to me!  Chuck this into the broiler while you go whack up the vegetative matter!

That oughta do it!
Could I have gone nuts and added more stuff like avocado, cilantro, chorizo, or fresh-sliced japalenos?! Sure, but I didn't have any of that stuff on-hand!
Feel free to garnish your nachos with anything you'd like!

Once it's all toasted & melty, yank it out of the toaster oven!

Awwww yeahhhhh!!! Lookin' goooood!!

Time to add the veggies!

Now, that really came together nicely!

Just in time for the Red Wings to drop the puck!
Hmmm, now what goes well w/ hockey and nachos??

A bigass mug of suds to wash it all down! Duh!

This oughta get me started!

Now, where's the damn Shit Yeah! sauce?!


Get you some!!

Mmmm, naaaachhhhooosss!!

This batch of nachos was just enough for two people!
Good thing I had enough on-hand to make more if necessary!
Instead, I brought the leftovers w/ me to work the next day and made myself a big, badass salad w/ hammed-up pulled pork on top! Woot!
How do you like your pulled pork?!  In tacos?  Made into chili?  Piled high on toasted rye w/ stone ground mustard?! Post a comment to let me know!


No comments:

Post a Comment