Oven Slow Cooked Korean Style Pulled Pork

Korean BBQ is everywhere! I’ve touched on it in the past on numerous occasions. And for good reason, it’s really good. Living in MD, one of the Korean capitals of the east coast, you have so many awesome Korean places to eat.

I’m sure Korean Americans are just saying, “wow you guys are pretty late to the party.” Either way I’m sure it’s been a boon for Korean restaurant owners. If you want to read a fascinating article on the rise of Korean Food in America, go here.

On top of that, when one of your good friends is a Korean American you have even more opportunities to eat this delicious cuisine. I’ve gravitated to having Korean American friends growing, most likely because despite being geographically far apart, Koreans Americans & Iranian Americans (especially the first generation of kids born in the states) are really similar.

We all have parents who value your education over everything else…including your well being or your mental health hahaha or basically anything. We have tight knit families that love to push food onto everyone.

Most importantly, we grew up in the same environment where your parents typically only spoke their native language with you at home and basically treated home like a foreign land. So you constantly felt like you lived in one country (culturally) at home and then when you stepped onto the school bus to go to school you experienced a completely different world (culturally). I know, heavy stuff, right? The life of first generation Americans is a interesting path that I’ll touch on more in the future. But back to stuffing our faces.

I’d like to preface this all with saying, I’m not a Korean BBQ connoisseur, I just know that it’s delicious and I’ve never been disappointed. The best thing for me about Korean food is the great sweet and savory flavor profiles that it has. So I wanted to bring that to a relatively lean cut of meat, pork loin. Pork loin is often overlooked as a slow cook protein, but it serves as a great vessel for flavors and it’s relatively healthy and high in protein so it made for a great dinner item.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 Cut of Pork Loin (2-3 lb)

2 Tbsp. Peanut Oil

1/2 Cup Chicken Broth

BBQ Sauce

2 Tsp. Korean Red Chilli Paste

4 Tbsp. Cranberry/Blackberry Preserve (This was a failed preserve I made that has now manifested into the perfect sweetener base for my BBQ sauces. The Cranberry is the perfect tangy mix that I need, which balances with the right amount of sugar the rest of the preserve provides for the sauce.) If you don’t have this, use the BBQ Pork Belly Marinade from my Pork Belly Tacos. It’s not the same exact flavor profile, but it’ll get the job done. You don’t need as much Rice Wine.

4 Tbsp. Korean Spicy Pork BBQ Sauce

2 Tbsp. Soy Sauce

2 Tbsp. Rice Wine

Method

Preheat your oven to 300F

Mix all of your sauce ingredients in a mixing bowl.  Put your peanut oil into a cast iron skillet or dutch oven. Heat it until it’s near smoking. Then add your pork loin. Brown it on all sides. Then add your chicken broth, reduce slightly (maybe 1 minute).

Cover your skillet with aluminum foil. Place in the preheated oven and cook for 3-4 hours covered. At the 3 1/2 hour mark, remove the cover, begin pulling apart the pork, and add your sauce. Now cook uncovered for the last half hour. This will help the sauce develop a rich flavor with the pork.

Enjoy!