Year of the Pig

I had bought a 1/2 a pork picnic at the supermarket and I decided to smoke that and make pulled pork for dinner on Sunday. I had invited over Corin (Crushinator) and Renee and Matt (our own Squidocto) for a relaxing Sunday evening dinner in the back yard and also found out that my housemate Kat and her friend Matt were planning to make a bunch of food too, including some ribs that they had made before and told me about. Sounded promising!

Neither Alissa nor I had ever cooked a Pork Picnic before, and the night before we had trimmed off the thick layer of skin. Wow that pig skin is a pain. This was a half picnic, weighing in at about 3 pounds. I figured I would just smoke it like a Boston Butt, and it would be fine. I read that it was less fatty than a Boston Butt, so I planned to baste it frequently. We used the same Mustard Slather from the day before, and put together a new rub from the Paul Kirk Book, called the “The Baron’s Cajun Rub” (see below for recipe) because we wanted something a little spicier. We tossed it on the smoker around 10 am. I let the rub set in for a few hours, and then started basting the picnic every 30-45 minutes, with the Memphis Basting Sauce from the previous post.

Meanwhile, Kat and Matt prepared their Ribs (see Ribs-a-la-Kat):

To make a long story short, I smoked that picnic for a good 7 hours and it did not appear to have gotten tender yet. I got out the left over ribs from the day before and heated them up so that we would have dinner, and just let the Picnic smoke on, thinking that my smoker was just too low of a temperature (around 200) and that it was gonna take a long time. We had a fine dinner with swiss chard, bbq beans, coleslaw, corn and ribs. And soon after, Kat and Matt were down with the 2nd course, finishing off their Stout-boiled ribs on the grill and then grilling up some seriously delicious red bell peppers stuffed with hominy and jack cheese and avacado. Nice job Matt! As for the ribs, I thought they were very good. Very tender, but not of the falling off the bone stew meat variety. The sauce was tangy and spicy. It was a good method, definitely worth experimenting with, although I must add, smoking is definitely my favorite way to go so far.

As for the picnic, we continued to smoke it and baste it. It ended up being quite dried out. We still pulled the meat apart and mixed it with the a BBQ sauce from the Paul Kirk book and a little apple sauce. It ended up being good for lunches during the week, but definitely not worth showing off to your friends.

Anyway, another 4 ribs brought me up to 67 ribs. Thanks to all the piggies, near and far!

**The Baron’s Cajun Rub
1/4 cup Cayenne Pepper
1/4 Sweet Hungarian Paprika
2 Tbs Chili Seasoning
2 Tbs Fresh Ground Black Pepper
1 Tsp White Pepper
1 Tsp Dry Mustard (I used Coleman’s)
1 Tsp Ground Thyme
1 Tsp Garlic Powder
1 Tsp Onion Powder
1/2 Tsp Rubbed Sage

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