Fakeout

Here's an addendum to the pulled pork post.  Several of my friends are vegetarians and, rather than rub meat in their faces like a savage, I try to come up with an alternative entree for them to enjoy.  Often I'll try to simulate the main course I'm preparing, but a lot of that relies on factory-designed meat imposters that should be embarrassing to anyone who markets them as "food."  Anymore, I'm happy to dress up a vegetable, fruit or grain in a delicious way than lean on these paltry substitutes.

Enter the jackfruit.

I went searching for vegetarian alternatives to pulled pork and found this recipe for pulled jackfruit, an Asian staple that hasn't made it big in America because, well, it looks really weird and doesn't taste like much.  The outer section of the jackfruit has a stringy texture, almost like the spore parts of a portabella mushroom, that lend themselves to being pulled apart with forks, simulating the appearance of pulled pork.

I started by coating the separated jackfruit (the inner section is too dense to pull) in the same spice rub that I had put on the pork.  The original recipe then called for it to be toasted in a pan, but since I had the smoker running outside with the pork shoulder in it, I decided I'd top rack the jackfruit for about an hour to get a nice smokiness without overpowering the spices.

Jackfruit has a very neutral flavor, at least out of the can (I'm told fresh jackfruit is sweeter), so you have to impart it with other strong flavors.  After pulling them off the smoker, I throw them in a pot on the stove top with equal parts water and peach-chipotle BBQ sauce and let it simmer for about 30 minutes until the jackfruit softened up, at which point I started pulling the pieces apart to make them look stringy.  What came out, I have to admit, at first glance looked a little bit like pulled pork slathered in BBQ sauce.

Let's set the record straight: despite what the recipe implies, this isn't going to fool anyone into thinking that it is actually pulled pork.  It passes the eye test when pressed between a bun, but as soon as you take a bite you'll know you've been had.  That said, the jackfruit does an admirable job of absorbing flavors and this particular batch got really spicy really fast due to the intensity of the chipotle in the BBQ sauce.

The vegetarians in our party seemed to really enjoy it, so I'd probably make it again with a few adjustments to the rub and sauce to make it a little more savory and less spicy-sweet.  After all, you don't win friends with salad, but you might keep friends with jackfruit.

Create and recreate

I learned a very simple culinary rule a few years back: If what you're doing isn't adding flavor, it's probably not worth doing. Obviously we can debate that some techniques are more for textural or aesthetic enhancement and don't add much flavor (boiling pasta in water, for example), or that there's a breaking point when flavors are too complex and obscure each other as they vie for your attention. But as a general rule, if you can bolster or complement a food's flavor during the cooking process, do it; maybe you want to boil that pasta in chicken stock instead? This rule especially holds true for foods that lack naturally robust flavors, like a pork shoulder, for example.

For the competition pork, Dan and I took six opportunities to add flavor to the meat:

• Brine (pineapple juice, grenadine and smoked salt)
• Rub (Hawai'ian salt, paprika, black pepper, mustard, secret hobo spices)
• Smoke (cherry wood)
• Braise (pineapple juice)
• Sauce (we played around with a coffee BBQ sauce, but ultimately decided to omit it)
• Garnish (white balsamic & red pepper coleslaw, hickory-smoked cherries)

Good enough for a panel of foodies to give us second place; not bad for bringing in simple pulled pork and coleslaw when other contestants were slinging beef hearts and smoked ice cream.

I wanted to recreate the dish exactly, but - damn you, passage of time - fresh cherries are out of season.  I really wanted to smoke a fruit* so I settled on peaches which are at the tail edge of their ripe season right now.  This would necessitate a few changes to the recipe from the competition version.

First, pineapple juice makes a complete exit.  We had a lot of problems with pineapples during the development - they tend to want to dominate over other flavors - so we relegated them to brine and braise, where they wouldn't be as overpowering.  With peach being the featured complement, pineapple got kicked to the curb.  I started with a brine "tea" of a quart of water, 3/4 of a cup each of kosher salt and sugar, plus a few splashes of apple cider vinegar, grenadine and dried chile de arbol.

Added that to 3 more quarts of water and chilled to 38 degrees.  Pork shoulder went in and sat in the brine in the refrigerator for about 18 hours.  Probably could have used another 18 considering it was a 9 pound roast; file that little nugget away for next time.

Morning of the cook, I pull the roast out and dry it with paper towels.  It sits for an hour at room temperature and gets a slather of yellow mustard (to promote crusty "bark") and a mostly salt-less rub similar to the competition rub (the brine should have imparted enough salt to the shoulder).

Once the smoker is up to temperature - 220-230 degrees is right around magical - the shoulder goes in and stays with the lid on for 5 hours, at which point I add my fresh peaches to the smoker.  BBQ wisdom: "If you're lookin', you ain't cookin'."  While that's going, I make a peach-chipotle BBQ sauce (inspired by but not faithful to this recipe) and some side dishes (mac & cheese and a tomato cucumber salad).  After 6 hours, a few stokes of the fire and cherry log additions, it looks beautiful when I finally take it out.**

If I were in an actual barbecue competition I'd finish this roast on the smoker (adding moisture softens the bark), but since this is an attempt to replicate past glory I opt to pull the shoulder and braise it in diluted apple juice until it comes up to 190 degrees.  Problem is, I've got hungry people infiltrating my house and the shoulder's not done in time.  I slept in too long and didn't get the smoker going at the crack of dawn like I should've.  I have to make a quick fix, so I hack off a couple big chunks, chop 'em up and throw them in the oven with some of the braising liquid until they come up to temp.  Upside is I served everybody at a reasonable hour, downside is I didn't get the stringy muscle fiber consistency I wanted.  Flavor is dead on, though.  Let's eat.  Note Dan getting first dibs on the pork while my lovely wife heads straight to the mac & cheese.

There's still about 6 pounds of pork in the braise and I make sure that I get the consistency I was going for with that.  You can't rush barbecue, ever, which I think is why I'm drawn to it.  It's a throwback to a point before life got all "on-demand" and "just-in-time" and "instant gratification."  Good things still come to those who wait.

*C'mon people, it's 2012.  That's not funny anymore.
**That's still funny.