Barbecue - Side Dishes

At almost any American barbecue, you'll find at least one of the three favourite side dishes: Coleslaw, Beans, or Potato Salad and there are very good reasons for their perennial popularity:

1. Each of these dishes can be prepared well in advance, freeing you from having to put together too many dishes at the last minute.
2. They all have excellent qualities of flavour that go well with cooked meat.
3. Every one of them is easy to serve, and easy to eat, which is important when many people will be standing up to enjoy their food.

Alternatively, you can make a good barbecue flavour by cooking the traditional Southern recipe, pulled pork. Here's how:

One 5 - 7 lb piece of roasting pork

Dry Rub

• 3 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon dry mustard
• 3 tablespoons coarse salt

Cider Vinegar Barbecue Sauce

• 100 ml cider vinegar
• 30 ml mustard
• 50 ml ketchup
• 30 grams brown sugar
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

How to cook:

Mix the paprika, garlic power, brown sugar, dry mustard, and salt together in a small bowl. Rub the spice blend all over the pork and marinate for as long as you have time for, as little as 1 hour or up to overnight, covered, in the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Put the pork in a roasting pan and bake for about 6 hours. Basically, roast the pork until it's falling apart and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part registers 170 degrees F.

To make the barbecue sauce - combine the vinegar, mustard, ketchup, brown sugar, garlic, cayenne, and black pepper in a saucepan over medium heat. Simmer gently, stirring, until the sugar dissolves.

Remove the pork from the oven and transfer to a large platter. Allow the meat to rest for about ten minutes. While still warm, using two forks, shred the pork by steadying the meat with one fork and pulling it away with the other. Put the shredded pork in a bowl. Pour half the sauce on the shredded pork and mix well to coat.

To serve, spoon the pulled pork mixture onto the bottom of the hamburger bun, and serve with the remaining sauce as a dip. Barbecue raclette photograph by Goldielox, used under a creative commons attribution licence.

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