Right now, foodservice operators are knocking themselves out to beat everyone else with chicken. Quit the chicken beating already! Pull yourself together and imagine other opportunities—like pulled pork. It can be economical. You don’t need the best cuts. You don’t have to lose any more sleep contemplating the best way to perfect, execute (and gasp, deliver!) crispy outcomes. Liberate yourself. Put away the fryer and pull out the wares to sous vide, steam, smoke, braise or roast.
As we speak, only a few specific foodservice segments have mastered pulled pork. BBQ restaurants as well as Southwest/Mexican eateries have already perfected the protein. But there’s plenty more to imagine, not only for them, but for all segments.
Let me lead you through an ideation session, and you take it from there. And here’s a worthy goal: Oct. 12, 2023 is National Pulled Pork Day. Set your sites on a pulled pork LTO for that day, week or month.
- Yes to pulled pork/carnitas quesadillas, tacos, burritos and such. But how about a little tasteful global fusion? Experiment with pulled pork lumpia, bao buns, spring rolls or any other traditional encasement.
- Sandwiches are the obvious. OK. Expand on that, like a pulled pork panini; Bahn mi; grilled cheese with pulled pork; Switch out the B for a PPLT; French baguette.
- Cottage Inn Gourmet Pizza offers the Smokehouse BBQ pizza with a base of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce topped with pulled pork, cheese blend, onions and bacon.
- As long as you’re slow-cooking that pork, by all means, find a breakfast application. Add some eggs and make a carnitas breakfast burrito. Hash is an under-menued breakfast/brunch dish. Go simple with a pulled pork hash that combines shredded potato, onion and melted cheese. Or, look at Greenleaf Kitchen & Cocktails. The carnitas hash on the brunch menu features braised carnitas, eggs, butternut squash, sweet potato, carrot, bell pepper and red and green onions with hollandaise sauce.
- Go Hawaiian. Kalua pig is smoked pulled pork. Anyone who has visited the Aloha State and attended a luau has had kalua pork, and it was likely memorable, because part of the pageantry of luaus is the pig cooking method and the story that goes with it. Lau lau is an authentic Hawaiian application of kalua pork. It’s a leaf-wrapped package that is worth looking into.
- Pair pulled pork with comfort. Mac and cheese gets a gourmet lift with a dab of pulled pork mixed in. Shareable comfort goes on the bar menu. Cover some French fries with pulled pork and cheese. Or, call upon Canada’s favorite poutine and top it with pulled pork and appropriate gravy.
Tell me what you think.
Jody
