How to Cook Pulled Pork Sous Vide | The Tool Shed

How to Cook Pulled Pork Sous Vide

If you have dipped your nose into the culinary world recently then it is likely you have come across pulled pork. You’ll see it sharing shelf space with burgers, ribs and wings at festivals and street markets. Its simplicity is very much the reason for its success. A muscular cut of pork slowly cooked with an assortment of delicious seasonings, until it is juicy and tender enough to be “pulled” off the bone into strands and placed onto fluffy buns.

Sous vide equipment is a wonderful option for recreating this delicious dish at home. This method ensures consistency in results and is also ideal for breaking down any tough tissue in the meat and sealing in all the gorgeous porky flavours to create a juicier more intense aromatic end result.

Cuts and Marinades

Pork shoulder is the ideal cut of meat for this recipe due to its high level of marbling. This means the fat will break down throughout the cooking process keeping the meat flavoursome and incredibly moist. In addition a boned shoulder can be flattened out to give you maximum surface area for the marinade to sink in. However, any muscular cut of pork will do and if it is a boneless piece of pork you can cut it into smaller pieces to make it easier for handling.

You should cook the pork with a barbecue marinade added to the pouch to ensure all of its porky flavours are locked in.

Method

Fill your water bath with clean, fresh water and preheat to 70°.
To prepare the meat remove any excess fat from the shoulder and then pat dry.
Next you need to make a paste for the pork. Do so by combining all of the marinade ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Once you feel it is well mixed, evenly coat the surface of the pork.
Vacuum seal the pork and any excess marinade in a large food-grade cooking pouch. Make sure the meat is flat and that the marinade is spread out evenly onto it.
Then take the pouch and place it in a rack. Lower this rack into the water bath, the reason for doing this is to stop the pork from floating up to the surface. Leave it to cook for 24 hours.
To eat straight away you should take the pouch out of the bath water bath and cut it open. Then take the pork out and place in another dish to cool. Pour the juices left in the bag into a pan and warm over the stove with a low heat for 5-7 minutes until you notice it thickening. You can char the outside of the pork with a blowtorch, if you don’t have a blowtorch you can colour the outside of the pork in a hot pan.
Pull the meat into shreds with a pair of forks or your own fingers
Add the thickened sauce to the shredded meat and mix well to make sure it is all coated.
Finally serve the meat in buns and accompany with some salad and pickles!

If you don’t plan on eating the meat straight away you can shock freeze the meat. You can do so by adding lots of ice into a water bowl (it should have 50% or more of ice then water in the bowl) and then plunging the unopened pouch into the bowl, letting it cool completely. Then place the pouch in the fridge or freezer. Note it can only stay in the fridge for a maximum of 4 days but it can freeze for a longer length of time. To eat, just defrost and reheat!

Post by Chris Holland

Our Chef Director Chris Holland worked as Head Chef at the prestigious Alderley Edge hotel before joining us. He has a passion for using the best produce and never compromises on quality. Author of our best selling book Sous Vide The Art of Precision Cooking, Chris is a expert on the sous vide technique.During the later part of my school days at Wardle High School Rochdale I always wanted to be a chef . I knew from the very start that my path to work was never going to be academic it was always going to be something practical and hands on.

As a young boy growing up I was inspired to cook with my Grandma who was and still is an inspiration to me . I have memories of helping make the cakes that she always had made for visitors and family alike . She made the most amazing cakes and I loved nothing more than eating the sweet raw cake batter straight from the bowl . We used to fight over who got to lick the bowl/spoon after the cakes were made. My grandma’s philosophy for cooking even on a shoe string budget was always to use fresh and seasonal ingredients either home grown or bought from the market.

School was somewhat of a drag for me as I was itching to learn to become a chef.

I started at Hopwood Hall college as a chef and instantly fell in love with it .To me it was the only real time I excelled in something and this inspired me to really get my head down and put in the hard work. College was the first time I really excelled in something and gave me the opportunity to laugh at the teachers who said I would never make something of my life!!!!

During the three years at college I also took on a part time position in a local hotel working the bar and restaurant first and then the kitchen. These were great days and gave me the opportunity to see how the industry ticks. I learnt a lot from those days both good and bad !! But I have to say I was itching to work only in the kitchen but it was a good insight into the catering world .

After completing college I moved away from Rochdale for a full time roll at one of Cheshire’s most talked about Hotel restaurants The Stanneylands Hotel. This was the school of hard knocks for me as I quickly realised that although excelling at college meant nothing in “The Real World”.

I loved every minute of the 18 hour days 6 days a week on minimum wage . Although difficult I feel that without this grounding I wouldn’t have achieved what I have today. After 18 months of hard graft I left Stanneylands and went with the Head chef to open a fine dining restaurant at Mere Golf and Country Club. The opportunity to work alongside Matthew Barrett was too good to turn down. I learnt so much from the ex-Ritz chef and working in a much slower paced role helped me develop a much better understanding of how to organise and run a kitchen. We were a very small team and teamwork was and still is the only way to go for me.

After 2 years at Mere I got the opportunity to go into The Alderley Edge Hotel as Junior Souschef. The Early days at the Edge were all about learning new styles of cuising which is invaluable in any role as a chef. I got the opportunity to grow and learn all aspects of every section which was inspiring . I was offered the opportunity at the age of 29 (2004) to take the role of head chef. For me this was when I really started to develop my own style of food.

After 9 years at the top winning Cheshire restaurant of the year , Chef of the Year and appearing on GBM amongst many highlights including cooking for many celebrities and famous people I decided to move on into development with Sousvidetools.

The main inspiration for this was to train and educate people . I always had a great passion for education but could never really see myself at a college . The job is super rewarding and I am proud to say we have become the leading light in sous-vide education in the UK . This is something I am very proud of . Food is my biggest passion and this is what keeps me interested the most . I love to travel and try out other countries cuisines. I am constantly inspired by ingredients and the pursuit of getting the best out of them without destroying their natural flavour .It is super important to me to continue to try and be at the forefront of the food scene this is what inspire me and the team to keep driving forward .

Technology is now widely used in the industry and I am super proud to say we have been a big part of spreading that message.

I am very lucky to be in the position I am and the drive to constantly improve our training and links to the next generation of young budding hospitality chefs.

TI feel that my experience over the last 25 years really enables me to get close and educate the “next generation” of chefs .

The industry which I love is really struggling to bring through new recruits and if I can help that process I will be immensely proud.

The food seen in the Uk has improved dramatically over the last ten years and I feel this will continue with the correct education. What happens next only fate will tell us...

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