Saucy

Last Friday I put another roast in the crock pot to become pulled pork.

Here in the Carolinas we have three different kind of sauces to use on pulled pork. In North Carolina we have two primary types; there are those who refer to them as right and wrong, but the traditional terms are eastern and western. The third is a mustard based sauce that is popular in South Carolina, I haven't tried it but it sounds delish so it might need some further investigation.

At any rate the Eastern sauce is vinegar based, rooted in the Scottish tradition when tomatoes were, so I've heard, considered poison (although I have also heard that it is due to vinegar being a preservative). The Germans brought us the South Carolina mustard-based sauces and the tomato based sauces were favored by the English in western North Carolina.

Regardless of the sauce, the Spaniards brought the pig and the natives showed us the proper way to cook them, over red hot coals. In eastern North Carolina they tend to go whole hog and in the Piedmont and western NC the use of large cuts such as shoulders are the norm. Either way the meat is traditionally smoked for a long period of time. I cheat by putting mine in a crock pot, but truthfully it is better when it spends 8-12 quality hours in the company of wood smoke.

This time around I was looking for an alternative to the store-bought tomato based sauces that have seemed to sprout up in my refrigerator so I thought I'd try my hand at making some of the eastern NC type sauce. It is actually pretty simple, consisting of vinegar and spices, and it turned out well. Of course I did have to add my own touches to it, you may choose to leave them out.

And without further ado, here it is!

1 cup white vinegar (I have seen recipes using only apple cider vinegar as well)
1 cup apple cider vinegar (two if you are not using white vinegar)
1 T packed brown sugar (I have seen recipes calling for as much as 1/4 cup, so add more if you want)
1 T cayenne pepper (I used red pepper flakes)
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (I used this but Tabasco would work just as well for a milder flavor)
1 t salt
1 t ground black pepper
ADDED INGREDIENT: 1 drop of Daves Insanity Sauce. Use this with caution, it gets its name honestly. I just put a bit on a toothpick and stir the vinegar with it until it is washed off. Throw that toothpick away immediately, you do NOT want to use it on anything else. Not even as a joke. Trust me on this.

Mix all of this up in a Mason jar with a tight fitting lid and shake it up every once in a while for two days as the flavors mingle, keeping it in the refrigerator between shakes. After two days shake it up really good again and decant it into a bottle (or just leave it in the jar) for serving. It keeps for a couple of months, so I've heard. The way it's getting gone I doubt it will last that long.

Enjoy!