Our all time favourite pulled pork recipe, we just had to get it up on the blog again, enjoy!!

When you go sugar free it’s not just traditional cakes and biscuits you give up but also a lot of food that you would think of as ‘savoury’ or condiments that go with savoury food.

Your average supermarket BBQ sauce is up to 55% sugar! That’s more than chocolate sauce. So when we saw this recipe from Spice Trip on SBS we decided to make it The Sugar Breakup style.

• Serves: 8 people
• Prep time: 20 minutes
• Cook time: 3½ to 5 hours
• Pan size: Deep flameproof casserole dish with a lid (or foil) that can go on hotplates & in the oven

Ingredients
½ shoulder of pork, (about 2kg/4½lb) off the bone
200ml dry cider*
100ml water

Ingredients: For the Dry Rub
2 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1 dried chilli or 2 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 garlic cloves
½ tbsp coriander seeds
½ tbsp cumin seeds
1½ tbsp smoked paprika
2 tbsp The Sugar Breakup Dextrose

Ingredients: For the BBQ Sauce
400ml passata
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp The Sugar Breakup Dextrose
60ml apple cider vinegar

Get going with the method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Have your butcher remove the skin and top layer of fat from the pork and discard (or you can keep and use for crackling another day).
2. Grind the dry rub ingredients in a pestle and mortar or spice grinder until course.
3. Season the pork with salt. In the casserole dish heat a good glug of oil and when hot, brown the pork on both sides.
4. Remove the pork from the casserole and cover with the dry rub, getting it in all the nooks and crannies.
5. Drain the excess fat from the casserole and return the pork to the dish. Pour the cider and water around the pork. Bake in the oven, uncovered, for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven to 140°C, cover with a lid (or can use foil over the dish if you don’t have a lid) and cook for a further 3½-5 hours.
6. Check every hour to ensure the liquid doesn’t dry out, top up with extra water if necessary. Cook until the meat is soft and pulls apart easily.
7. Remove from the oven, put the pork in a serving dish

Making the BBQ Sauce

1. Place the casserole dish with the excess liquid on the hotplates, add BBQ sauce ingredients (passata, Dijon mustard, dextrose and vinegar) bring to the boil
2. Turn the heat down and leave to bubble for 10–15 minutes, or until sauce has thickened and reduced a little.
3. Whilst the sauce is cooking pull the pork apart with a fork.

We’ve served ours with a fresh coleslaw of cabbage, parsley, mint, radish, carrot and apple dressed with the juice of 1 lime and a drizzle of olive oil. The salad is so light and refreshing, a lovely counter balance with the meat.

Make sure you share!

Note
Apple Cider – When apple cider is made most of the sugar from the fruit is cooked out. Unfortunately manufacturers then add sugar back in to make it sweet. In this recipe we used the driest cider we could find in an average bottle shop (Strongbow Dry) which in 200ml is about a teaspoon of sugar. This recipe serves 8 so it is a very small amount per person.