However, there are more than a few half-time breaks between when the kids arrive, and when they move out and during this time, our gender-specific cooking skills are not appreciated by certain members of the general community such as wives, girlfriends, and the Department of Community Services. Thus it comes to be that the stay-at-home Dad must fight against countless generations of genetically encoded two minute meals and prepare balanced, healthy food for his family.
Despite this, the basic instincts still prevail and the attraction of meat and fire proves irresistible. Barbecuing as a means of preparing meals tends to be relegated to weekends and special occasions, however, many stay-at-home Dads find themselves staring longingly out the window at their loyal, trusty grill whilst working over a hot stove in a sweaty kitchen. This was the situation I found myself in, and in keeping with the minimalist male cooking style I wanted to be as efficient as possible. My goal was to find something I could cook on a barbecue, would be wife/DOCS approved, and would last for several meals.
My first port of call was to join a barbecue enthusiast forum and have a look at some of the things that people were cooking and sharing before deciding that I was going to have a go at Pulled Pork. In America, the cut of meat is called a Boston Butt, but in Australia it is a pork shoulder roast. Fortunately, I'd been a very good boy this year and Santa gave me an upright water smoker for Christmas and I was eager to test it out. I found a recipe for it in the book that came with it, as well as recipes for a barbecue spice rub and spicy apple barbecue sauce.
I went to my local butcher and explained that I wanted to do a Boston Butt and he got me a 5 kilo bone-in shoulder cut and even trimmed the skin off for me! :)
And here it is with the spice rub applied, injected with Coca Cola, and wrapped in Glad Wrap to sit overnight.
I got up at 6.30am the next morning and grabbed the pork out of the fridge and let it sit for about an hour to get to room temperature. I used this time to get the coals lit and ready. At 7.40am I was satisfied that the temperature was holding steady and whacked on the pork.
By 7pm that night the meat was cooked and I was able to start pulling it apart.
Pulled Pork is traditionally eaten on fluffy white bread rolls, with a side of basic salad, and the aforementioned home-made spicy apple barbecue sauce, so that's what we did. Thus the remaining question must be how does this possibly qualify as an efficiently minimalistic meal when it took all day to cook?
Firstly, the preparation time, including making the spice rub and the barbecue sauce was about two hours, though next time I do it will be faster. The meat itself was simply set and forget: I used a digital meat thermometer with an alarm to tell me when the meat had reached the desired temperature. Even though it took all day to cook, it really only took a half hour to set the fire and get it burning nicely, and what bloke would ever resent having to spend a half hour to light a good cooking fire? :)
The true beauty of this dish is its ability to be reused. We have three adults living here at the moment: myself, the wife, and the mother-in-law. We had a meal out of it the first night, and the following day I divided the rest into zip lock bags for future meals. In total I had five zip lock bags of meat left over for future meals. Given there are three of us here, that's six meals, or eighteen serves. The meat itself can be used in different dishes: the next night we had smoked pork burritos. Very efficient! Even better, my smoker has two cooking grills, so for the same amount of prep time, I could cook two of these Boston Butts, totalling twelve meals or thirty-six serves! With a three hour prep time, that's fifteen minutes per meal.
Furthermore, it was very well received: my wife told me she wants me to cook on the smoker more often, my mother-in-law who is from Arkansas in the south of America and a fanatical foody told me it was the best Pulled Pork she'd ever had and my one year old enjoyed the little pieces we gave him too. However, would DOCS approve of this meal? Given that there are no artificial colours, flavours, preservatives or additives, (aside from the little bit of Coca Cola mentioned earlier!) I'm quite confident they'd give me their red rubber stamp of approval.
What does all this mean for the stay-at-home Dad? I have the opportunity to make twelve meals at a time, eleven of which can be prepared during the half-time break in a State of Origin game, it passes the mum test, the mother-in-law test, and I'd wager the DOCS test, and it's set and forget, giving me more time to sit outside in the grass playing Wiggles songs on my guitar while my son bashes along on his dinosaur xylophone. It's a win all round for the stay-at-home Dads!
Cheers,
Ben
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