Peach and mustard is a good combo with pork. This recipe reminds me a bit of our Christmas ham recipe. This just uses an uncured pork shoulder rather than ham and makes the sauce with lots of tomato and vinegar to create something more like a barbecue sauce.

I think this would've been beautiful done on the barbecue, but it's cold and I was tired, so I just did it in the oven. I think it really would have benefitted from a long, slow, cooking over indirect heat on the grill. As it was, I found I needed to tweak the oven cooking a bit.

I initially just cooked it at 300°F for 5 hours as directed in the recipe, but I failed to check the internal temperature before removing it from the oven and, after resting it for a while, TF found that it was a bit undercooked when she went to shred the meat. So, back into the oven it went! We ended up nudging the temperature up to 350°F and cooking it for another hour. That did the job and got it up to the desired internal temperature, but I think it would've been nice with an even longer cook time. We were just hungry and tired and wanted to get it done, so we rolled with it as it was.

Pulled Pork with Peach-Mustard Sauce

Slightly adapted from Dish of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 1 bone-in pork shoulder (~3kg)
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 Tbsp. black peppercorns
• 1 Tbsp. mustard seeds
• 2 c. cider vinegar, divided
• 1 c. water
• 7 onions, 4 sliced, 3 chopped
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter¹
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 400mL crushed tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 c. peach jam
• 1/2 c. Roman mustard² or Dijon mustard
• 1/2 c. bourbon³
• 1/2 c. honey
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 1-2 Tbsp. hotsauce
• buns, to serve
• coleslaw, to serve

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C (300°F) and grease or oil a roasting pan.
2. Combine the salt, pepper, mustard seeds and grind.
3. Slather the ground spices over the entire surface of the pork shoulder and place it in the prepared roasting pan.
4. Pour the water and 1 c. of the vinegar into the roasting pan.
5. Add the sliced onions over and around the pork.
6. Cover with foil and bake at 160°C (300°F) for 4 hours.
7. Remove foil and return to oven for another hour or two (until internal temperature reads at least 80°C/175°F).
8. If pork is still not done (or if you'd like to brown the outside a bit more), increase the temperature to 180°C (350°F) and cook for another 30-60 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, melt the butter over medium heat and add the chopped onions and garlic. Cook until onions have softened and started to brown (~10 minutes).
10. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, jam, mustard, bourbon, honey, sugar, and hotsauce.
11. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat then reduce to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 2 hours.
12. Once pork is done, set aside to cool for ~1 hour.
13. Remove pork and onions from roasting pan. Shred the meat and discard the fat.
14. Add ~1/2 the sauce to the shredded pork and mix well.
15. Serve the pork on buns with extra sauce and coleslaw.

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¹ The original recipe called for 1/2 c. of butter! I cut this back to 2 Tbsp. and I'm perfectly happy with the results. Next time I might even be tempted to skip the butter altogether and just skim some fat off the pork drippings to use in my sauce. Either way, I don't think you need 8 Tbsp. of butter to make a good sauce for your pork! That just seems excessive. ^1
2 I only ended up putting 1/4 c. of mustard into our sauce. I wanted to taste it first and see if it seemed like it needed the whole 1/2 c. I think it was fine with only half the amount, but more would've been better. I just got a bit frazzled toward the end of the evening and forgot about adding the rest of the mustard. At least now I'll know for next time! ^Back
3 I didn't have any bourbon handy, so I just tossed in some rum. Not the same, I know, but I didn't want to go out to the LCBO just for that, so I made do with what I had. ^Back