Lunchbox Recipe - Pulled pork tortilla

Today's lunchbox menu is pulled pork tortilla, corn chips, butter greens & strawberry+mango salad.

I had been wanting to make pulled pork for a very long time........finally, a few days ago, I bought a 2.6lb of pork shoulder at the supermarket.

The traditional way of making pulled pork is to give the pork a dry-rub with lotsa seasonings....marinate it overnight (some people would steep it overnight in some kind of a homemade brine) and then slowly roast the pork over the grill for 6-10hours before pulling the meat chunk into tiny shreds.

Now I obviously am NOT gonna spend half my life over the grill......so I derived a cheat's way of making pulled pork. Please note that it might not taste truly "authentic" but considering the minimal effort/time....it does still kick a mighty taste punch!

First, I made some stabs with my small knife all over the pork shoulder. This is to let the seasonings get into the pork while marinating/cooking. I applied a dry rub of cumin powder, garlic powder & salt all over the meat and allow it to marinate in the refrigerator for about 3-4 hours.

I preheated my oven (convection function) to 275F. I placed the marinated pork in my cast iron pot, poured some diet coke (aprox 1/4 of the big bottle) into the pot (I like to cook/marinate my meats with diet sodas because the meats always turn out very tender)....covered with the cast iron lid and popped it into the oven for 2.5-3hours (flipping the pork over once midway through baking).

2.5-3hours later......I took out the pork (do not turn off the oven at this point) and placed it in a big mixing bowl. Using 2 forks, I shredded the meat chunk quickly.

I drained most of the liquid in the cast iron pot (be careful, it's HOT!) but kept approx 1-1.5 cup in which I added about 1/3 bottle of my honey BBQ sauce, a couple tablespoons of kecap manis & a dash of sesame oil. I tossed in the pork shreds and mixed them in the sauce. Then with the pot lid back on, I put the pot back into the oven for another 1hr.

At the end of the baking, you'd end up with beautiful moist pork threads like these............I couldn't resist stealing strands after strands of the pork to put into my mouth :P~ So there you go......the cheat's way of making pulled pork in less than half the cooking time and with half the effort! The pulled pork will chill nicely in the refrigerator so you can reheat it in the microwave anytime you feel like having one of those juicy pulled pork burgers.

This morning, I spread non-fat mayo, lettuce strips & the pulled pork on half side of a round wheat tortilla.....fold the tortilla in half and then fold it again into a quarter for RG's lunchbox.

I also made a strawberry+mango salad by washing/cutting the fruits and then soaking them in fresh 100% orange juice with some agave nectar to reduce the tanginess of the fruits.

Like how the strawberries looked like little hearts? Here's a short pictorial tutorial how to cut them: