Pulled Pork Sliders

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
1

Ok, I didn’t cook it. Larry Vito makes the best pulled pork I have ever tasted and his Sebastopol Smokehouse is on the way home from work. So, get some of his mouth watering meat, some slaw, a little Carolina style sauce and Hawaiian sweet rolls and it’s a meal.

2

Hungry.

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What’s in the “Carolina style sauce”?

3

You have to make them with Challah rolls. I call them Pulled Pork a la Oxymoron. The went real fast at the Berserkerfest with home made Carolina style sauce - mustard and vinegar instead of tomato and molasses. Also Carolina cole slaw with a mustard vinagrette dressing instead of mayo.

4

This is sort of where I was headed.

There is no one “Carolina style” sauce.

Mustard sauce is a central South Carolina phenomenon, centered around Columbia, though of late it has been popping up in other places - though rarely in North Carolina.

Eastern North Carolina sauce is apple cider vinegar and crushed red pepper, no tomato within 100 miles. “People who would put ketchup in the sauce they feed to innocent children are capable of most anything.” ~ Dennis Rogers, Raleigh News & Observer.

Central/Piedmont North Carolina sauce (“Lexington style”, and usually called “dip” instead of “sauce”) is ketchup and vinegar based, fairly thin and not very sweet. No molasses.

Western North Carolina sauce - and South Carolina sauce in most parts of the state where mustard doesn’t hold sway - is tomato/ketchup based, thick and sweet.

Nor, to my knowledge, is there a definitive “Carolina slaw.”

In Eastern North Carolina, the norm is very finely chopped cabbage with mayonnaise, yellow “ball park” mustard, and - the defining ingredient - celery seed.

In Central/Piedmont North Carolina, “red slaw” reigns supreme - cabbage with “Lexington style” BBQ sauce. http://www.slashfood.com/2009/01/03/north-carolina-bbq-slaw/

I can’t claim expertise on Western North Carolina or South Carolina slaw, but if this recipe is typical (a cup of sugar to a head of cabbage!!??), I’m not interested:
http://bbq.about.com/od/miscellaneousrecipes/r/bl90123h.htm

5

Vinegar, possibly brown sugar and a nice spicy pepper but no tomato, no chunks of anything and I find no hint of mustard. To be honest with you I don’t know what he puts in it but it just plain killer. Looks like Apple Cider Vinegar with almost the same consistency. I’m thinking he extracts the heat from the peppers and discards the solids.

The slaw has no mayo or mustard.

Challah is generally only available out here on Fridays and Saturdays. Most bakeries don’t make it any other day though Nightingale Breads in Forestville has Thursday as Challah day.

6

Brian, get some fresh corn tortillas, and add some Cholula, cotija or feta cheese along with the pulled pork soaked in a apple cider vinegar sauce… Heaven! This was my Mex-Cali discovery this last summer and has become a fixture on our summer menu.

7

Robert, this is where I got the recipe for my “Northern Carolina Sauce” that I serve on pulled pork:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vinegar-Sauce-242391

Granted, I turn around and serve in tacos - 100% better than a white bun - so I’m not the person to have a discussion about what is ‘correct’…

8

Steve Raichlen is FOS, and has badly misled you. From the link: “Peppery and piquant, this vinegar sauce is the preferred condiment of eastern North Carolina.” Wrong. Put ketchup - or brown sugar - in your sauce in Eastern NC and they’ll run you out of town.

Except for the amount of sugar (too much), the recipe is a pretty good approximation of Central/Piedmont (“Lexington style”) NC sauce.

Whatever you call it (and I notice that the recipe calls it, simply, “Vinegar Sauce”), it sounds tasty even if a bit sweet for my palate.


EDIT: Here’s an authentic Eastern NC sauce recipe, though the black pepper is optional): Old-Time Eastern North Carolina Barbecue Sauce Recipe

9

Thanks Robert - I do usually knock back the sugar, and go heavy with the pepper flakes. This flavor profile pairs amazingly well with Mexican food - try a few drops of the sauce on carne asada or carnitas tacos.

10

I am far from an expert in South Carolina sauces. Just got them from recipes on the net and I have never had 'Q in South Carolina. However, I once made the complete sandwiches at a Jets tailgate with my version of Sout Carolina slaw (a cooked dressing with vinegar, a touch of oil, a bit of brown sugar, kosher salt (there’s that oxymoron again), fresh ground mustard seed and just a touch of fresh ground celery seed). I shared some with the people next to us. One of them was a women from South Carolina. She thought it was fantastic and just like her grandmother used to make. Highest praise I can think of.

11

Other than the rolls needing a little toasting they look great.

12

There are other parts of NC? (than eastern)

Pulled pork is and has been a staple in our family. It’s eastern sauce or no sauce.

That sticky sweet tomato stuff…that’s like two buck chuck

And what is this mustard you speak of?