Jackfuit pulled 'pork'

February 25, 2012

Apparently jackfruit pulled 'pork' circulated the vegan blogosphere a few years ago - Cindy reckons she first saw it on Chow Vegan. Then we sampled it here in Australia at The Gasometer and started plotting our own home-made version. The first challenge was finding canned jackfruit - most Asian supermarkets sell cans of it but they usually have it floating in syrup. For this more savoury meal you need to have it canned in brine. Thankfully K came through with two cans for us (although we're still not sure where from) and with the heat keeping us inside on the weekend we had plenty of time to give it a shot.

It's a bit of faffing about to make but luckily Jessica at Clean Green Simple has put together a detailed, photo-heavy post walking you through the whole process. We basically copied her recipe step for step. The end result was a baking tray full of stringy, tender and surprisingly porky looking jackfruit. The spice rub and sauce combo had a good mix of smokiness, tomatoey sweetness and spice but on the whole the 'pork' was a tiny bit lacking in savouriness - Cindy reckons a generous slosh or two of Worcestershire sauce would improve things next time. And there will be a next time because this was basically a success. It worked okay on our fancy rolls with a few greens and some coleslaw on the side, and then when we combined the coleslaw and pork on the same sandwich it became a really magnificent lunch.



Jackfruit pulled pork
(recipe taken from Clean Green Simple)

2 cans jackfruit in brine
2 small onions, chopped finely
5 cloves garlic, minced

spice rub
1/2 teaspoon red chilli flakes
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons salt

sauce
6 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons veggie oil
1 teaspoon tamarind paste
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Drain the brine off the jackfruit and rinse it well. Chop the firm centre-piece off each jackfruit segment so that you're just left with the stringier bits.

Combine all the dry rub spices and then stir through the stringy jackfruit pieces - the spice rub should stick to the fruit pretty effectively.

Put the coated jackfruit pieces in a dry pan over medium heat and toast the spice rub - it should only take 5 minutes or so for the spices to start to smell delicious.

In a separate bowl, mix together the sauce ingredients and then pour them over the jackfruit in the pan. Get it all simmering and cook for about half an hour - you want some of the sauce to be absorbed and for the jackfruit pieces to go nice and soft and start falling apart. Once it's ready pull the jackfruit apart with a couple of forks into nice stringy pieces (see above).

Spread the jackfruit mix out in a lightly oiled baking tray and stick it in the oven. Cook for twenty minutes, stirring after ten.

Serve!