Get Your Butt Outside!!!

One of my other favorite dishes is pulled pork barbeque. Great any time of the year, but given its long cooking time in a hot oven, it can be difficult to do in the summer. Who wants to spend both the money on both heating the oven (and the kitchen), then turning up the air conditioning to compensate for that heat? Nobody!

So, how do you cook the barbeque and avoid this problem? Put it on the gas grill! Think about it…it’s the same thing as an oven, it’s just outside.

- 1 pork butt (or 2 pork shoulders)
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 bottle of beer (12 oz)
- 1 cup of water
- 1 cup of barbecue sauce (or more to taste)

Heat the bottom half of a Dutch Oven pan on the stove to medium-high heat and pre-heat your gas grill to 300 degrees. Add the pork to the pan and turn every few minutes to ensure that all sides are seared to a great caramel brown color. Once all sides have been browned, add the tomatoes and onions then remove from the heat. Slowly pour the beer over the pork (note: liquids do not mix with the hot oil on the bottom of the pan so be careful!) Once the beer is added, cover the dish with the top half of the pan and place the closed unit on the grill.

After 90 minutes, open the Dutch Oven and flip the pork to the other side. Close the Dutch Oven and let it continue to cook for another 90 minutes.

Remove the Dutch Oven from the grill and take it back to the stove. Remove the pork and place it on a plate. Place the bottom half of the pan on the stove on medium heat, add the water and stir working the dark cooked pork from the sides and bottom of the pan to make a dark gravy. Once all the dark spots on the pan have been added to the gravy, add the barbeque sauce and stir occasionally.

Using two forks, shred the cooked pork. Given the long cooking time, the meat should just fall apart between the forks. Add the shredded pork back into the cooking pan and stir in the barbeque sauce. Once fully mixed and warmed, serve pork on hearty bread or rolls with potato chips or cole slaw.

I will warn you, as this dish cooks for hours outside, the smell may drive the neighbors crazy! Be sure to make extra as some will be expecting a dinner invitation. Enjoy!