My friend gave me an idea for using up the meat from pork ribs I used to make stock for our steamboat dinner – Pulled Pork Sandwich.
A pulled pork sandwich is usually a slow cooked pork shoulder, that is pulled apart with a fork. Hence, “pulled”.
In this case, I had some meat from the pork rib that was tender due to the long boiling time to make a stock.
I was already halfway there.
All I needed wasto make sure the pork still has a good porky flavour. And I was lucky. It did, because I had used much more ribs than necessary for the amount of stock I’d made.
Meat off, I mixed it with Famous Dave’s Barbecue Sauce, which I had acquired on my first US trip in 2009.
Sometimes, I feel that pulled pork sandwiches can taste a little “one-note” and it gets boring. So I fried up some onions till soft and added it in. It was good.
I decided that they would be little sandwiches. I was going to get those horrid mis-shapened butter rolls from Gardenia. But, I found these excellent buns, also called butter rolls, from Sunshine bread. My only complaint is the way they’re packed.
With these buns, my hamburgers can make a comeback at my barbecues, because regular sized hamburgers make us too full for anything else.
You can see how the packaging flattens these buns.
Two mini-sandwiches a person, should be adequate.
And of course, I had to have the standard accompaniment for pulled pork sandwich – coleslaw.
Ever since I’ve made my own coleslaw dressing at my last barbecue, I’ve gone on to make a few more coleslaws, to try and vary it.
In my first coleslaw, I had the standard white & red cabbage, carrot, apples and sunflower seeds.
My second attempt had the same, adding mang kuang or turnip.
My third attempt, I dropped turnip and I added in onion and lotus root instead.
On my fourth and current attempt, I put in jambu air or rose apple.
Turnips are good, and I think lotus root is good too, except I got old ones and it was stringy and awful. So you have to be very careful. The rose apple doesn’t make much of a difference.
Then I roasted potatoes. I used my cast iron pan for this. And it made the heat much higher than I anticipated.
As a result, the potatoes look burnt because I didn’t turn them early enough. But I can tell you those crunchy bits were not at all bitter and damn good! The dark side was sitting on the pan and the light side was facing up.
The cast iron pan really did the “roasting” and now I’m wondering if I could have done them over fire instead.
For the roast potatoes, I set the oven to 250 deg. C. and had oil (which I’d gotten from frying onions) sitting in my cast iron pan in the oven, heating up inside. The potatoes were boiled in lightly salted water. I drained this water and intend to use it for soup tomorrow.
After draining the potatoes, I took out the cast iron pan, put in diced garlic, onion powder, garlic powder and paprika. I put the potatoes in the hot oil in the cast iron pan. Everything sizzles on contact with the oil, which is exactly what you want.
Okay, so this is the full meal. In full blurry glory.
Notice the properly buttered (edge to edge) buns. No lump of butter the way Ya Kun does it, thank you.
If you’re wondering what those black things on top of the coleslaw are, they’re dried persimmons. At first, when I put them all together, I felt they didn’t go. But later, when the persimmons had absorbed some moisture from the dressing and vegetables, it tasted better.
So my take is that if you’re using dried fruit, it’s better to soak them just a little bit of liquid so their texture fits in more with the rest of the coleslaw. Notice I say liquid. Why not try a juice or wine or brandy?
Yummy.
On a side note, I already fried KFC-style chicken in my cast iron pan and it was damn good.
The next thing I want to do is either rack of lamb or a good thick steak. I need two hands to manage the pan and don’t know how people cook eggs on this thing. How do you do a flip? I am also thinking of doing a big Yorkshire Pudding in this pan.
Oh yes, with my cast iron pan, my cooking ambitions have grown.
Speaking of eggs, I’ve continued practicing making eggs over easy and I think I have nearly gotten it. I continue to do my eggs on a non-stick pan, though. Wish me luck.