The Perfect Butt For New Years

Nothing sends delicious aromas circulating through the house on New Years Day like a Barbecued Boston Butt slow roasting in the oven. Especially when the roasting process combines the pork with the trifecta of onion, celery and carrots. Add a little red wine to the mix and the result is heaven in a dutch oven. After roasting the pork, I will let it cool down to the point that I can comfortably work with it, and within hours we will be enjoying some Lowcountry Pulled Pork sandwiches paired with homemade cole slaw, hoppin' john and angel biscuits. Yum!

I actually prefer to use my outdoor smoker to cook my pork barbecue, but this morning for convenience sake (the smoker method is a little bit more high maintenance than the oven) I decided to use the oven and use celery, carrot and onion along with some red wine to impart the flavor to the pork instead of applewood smoke.

I start by dicing up an onion, a couple of stalks of celery and a peeled carrot.

Next I heat just enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of a dutch oven and brown the butt on all 4 sides.

With the roast browned and resting on a tray, I add the vegetable trifecta to the oil and cook for a minute or two, then blend in a 1/4 cup of red wine and simmer for another minute. Finally, I finish the ragout with 1/2 cup of chicken stock and let the blend simmer for about 5 minutes flushing out all inhabitants from every nook and corner of the house as they scurry to the kitchen to see what I am cooking.

After simmering the ragout, I put the seared pork back into the pot, seal with a tight fitting lid and pop it into the pre-heated oven (250 degrees) and let it roast for 2-3 hours, until the meat falls apart.

Once the roast is done I set it aside for a couple of hours to cool then simply "pull" the pork apart shredding it into flavorful strands of pork barbecue. At that point, you can either toss the pork with your favorite barbecue sauce or leave it "un-sauced" and serve various sauces on the side. I prefer to leave it "un-sauced" because in my house, some like traditional sweet and tangy 'cue sauce and some like a golden mustard/vinegar based sauce. I happen to like both, so it just makes since to serve the barbecue naked (the pork not the server) and let each person decide how to dress the 'cue.

Before enjoying our New Years Day dinner of pulled pork, slaw, hoppin' john and some tasty little angel biscuits with honey-butter we hung out on the back patio reading for a bit. You have to love life From The Land of Palm Trees, while my friends up in the mountains are prepping for 3 days of wind, snow and frigid we are enjoying a mild New Years Day by the fireside.