Pulled Pork with White Barbecue Sauce

Hubby and I were talking the other day about the states we have been in - no surprise here, I'm a military brat so won hands down on having been in the most states.  That got me to thinking about the different  foods of each state and what I haven't tried.  Doing a bit of research on the net, I discovered that iconic foods are very controversial! What is a must try food from your state?

Out of curiosity I looked up foods from Alabama. One item that continued to come up consistently with Alabama was a white barbecue sauce. I like a good barbecue sauce and love the ones that have a little kick to them.  All I have ever had though was the basic red sauces (i.e. tomato based) so curiosity had the best of me and we went with a recipe for pulled pork that had a white barbecue sauce(which I found on myrecipes.com and was taken from Cooking Light). The pork is supposed to be served on sweet potato biscuits but it's hot today and I'm not terribly ambitious so I'm serving them on buns I have on hand. As I was making the sauce I kept having this nagging feeling of "I know this recipe."  My first taste and I figured it out... duh... its the dressing I use on our coleslaw! Mayo, cider vinegar, sugar, salt and a bit of pepper.  I wanted a different taste so I combined two recipes and came up with my own version of  the white bbq sauce.  Want to see the originals? Check out these links Southern Living or  Myrecipes.com

Of course, if your going down south you have to have some sweet tea to go with your meal.  Nope, never had sweet tea either though I have had iced tea with sugar.  Purists have told me that my iced tea with sugar is nothing like a good southern sweet tea so I found a recipe on line and served that with dinner as well.

Overall, we liked the pulled pork but didn't think the white barbecue sauce was anything we needed to try again.  The sweet tea... well, it is indeed sweet! It was quite good though.  .

Alabama Pulled Pork Sandwiches with White Barbecue Sauce

inspired by Cooking Light and Southern Living

Ingredients

Sauce:

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Cider vinegar

1 teaspoon Coarsely ground fresh pepper

2 teaspoon Fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon prepared horseradish

Dash of salt

Pork:

1 1/4 pounds Pork tenderloin, trimmed

1/2 cup Apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup Water

3 tablespoons Brown sugar

2 teaspoons Kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon Ground red pepper

1/2 teaspoon Chili powder

1/4 teaspoon Garlic powder

2 tablespoons potato starch  this is my addition... we didn't care for how runny it was so we added thickener.

Preparation

1. Prepare sauce by combining the first 6 ingredients in a small bowl. Cover and chill.

2. Prepare pork: cut pork into 2 1/2-inch pieces. Combine apple cider vinegar and next 7 ingredients (through garlic powder) in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil. Add pork to pan. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour or until tender. Remove pork from cooking liquid; shred with 2 forks (I cheated and just pulled it apart with my fingers).  In remaining liquid, add the two tablespoons of thickener and whisk smooth.  Bring to a boil and add shredded pork back into the liquid.  Allow to thicken, remove from heat. Serve on buns.

Smooth Sweet Tea

allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 pinch baking soda

2 cups boiling water

6 tea bags

3/4 cup white sugar

6 cups cool water

Directions

1.Sprinkle a pinch of baking soda into a 64-ounce, heat-proof, glass pitcher. Pour in boiling water, and add tea bags. Cover, and allow to steep for 15 minutes.

2.Remove tea bags, and discard; stir in sugar until dissolved. Pour in cool water, then refrigerate until cold.