This Texas Style BBQ Pork Recipe was taught to us by Rusty Irons, the owner of the first holiday rental we settled into in Austin. Rusty may be a petite woman, but her personality is a big as the state of Texas.
Rusty is also a passionate supporter of local produce and a cook who makes a mean BBQ pork. Flush with local products, from aromatic salsas to BBQ spices, the open pantry that Rusty Irons offers to guests staying in her holiday rentals is enough to fill an aisle of Austin’s home-grown Whole Foods Market. Let’s just say Rusty is a woman who doesn’t do thing by halves.
Rusty cooks. And Rusty grills. And she loves pork. I love pork too. I love it cured. I love it cooked – the slower the better. As we’re in Texas, the home of American-style BBQ, I was already thinking about doing a BBQ pork recipe for my series The Dish, where I cook a quintessential dish from each place we settle into for a while.
When Rusty told us she had appeared on American superstar chef Bobby Flay’s Grill it with Bobby Flay show to demonstrate her grilling talents, it all seemed so obvious.
Texas Style BBQ Pork Recipe by Rusty Irons in Austin, Texas
Bobby Flay is the guy that got America out brushing off that Weber BBQ again. And Rusty Irons has a BBQ in her yard, available to the guests of her holiday rentals to use. What better excuse could there be for us to learn how to make Rusty’s Texas Style BBQ Pork Recipe.
When Rusty offered to show me how she made the dry-rubbed BBQ pork that got her onto Bobby Flay’s programme, I was already salivating. And super-delighted that I didn’t have to beg her.
Unlike my favourite Chinese versions of slow cooked pork which are marinated in a ‘wet’ spice and/or sauce mix, Texans generally use a ‘dry rub’, i.e. they rub dry spices onto the skin (no liquids), and let them do their thing overnight in the fridge. Rusty demonstrated this bit in her kitchen, as we drank Texas wine and boutique beers. Not together of course.
Rusty serves the dish with her own homemade BBQ sauce, and she’ll often improvise a little, depending on what’s fresh in the markets. But I’m providing her basic recipe here.
The sauce is almost as important as the meat. Almost. I watched Rusty cook up her sauce in her kitchen too.
The BBQ? Well that was done outside of course. On the Weber. On a balmy summer’s evening.
Rusty said she is happy to make her BBQ pork to order on special request for her holiday rental guests. It shouldn’t be a special request though. It should be mandatory!
Instead of me wasting pixels, here’s our Texas Style BBQ Pork Recipe by Rusty Irons in Austin, Texas, in Rusty’s own words.
Texas Style BBQ Pork Recipe by Rusty Irons in Austin, Texas
Ingredients
- 7 lb Pork ‘Butt’ 3.5kg Pork ‘Butt’ (Note: it’s not a ‘butt’ at all, but the upper portion of the front shoulder), bone in
- 1 tbsp 'The Salt Lick Bar-B-Cue’ Dry Rub Spice Driftwood, TX 78619
- 1 tbsp Texas Wildflower Honey pourable by GoodFlow Company, Austin, TX 78702
- 6 cups apple juice
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups apple cider vinegar
- 2 oranges quartered
- 2 Granny Smith apples quartered
- 3 cinnamon sticks
Instructions
- Score top layer of fat on the pork in a checkerboard design.
- Rub your favourite dry rub spice liberally all over butt. Pat the butt. Be sure to work rub into small scored spaces. Massage that butt!
- Wrap butt tightly with heavy duty aluminium foil and store in fridge overnight, if you can wait!
- Remove butt from fridge and bring up to room temperature.
- Light her up! The BBQ grill that is. I light up all 3 burners on my Weber to heat the grill to high temp.
- Meanwhile, place uncovered pork butt in thoroughly lined (aluminium foil) roasting pan, fat side up.
- Add apple juice, chicken broth and apple cider vinegar to the bottom of pan.
- Take your favourite pouring honey and slather it over the top of the butt.
- Toss in the oranges and apples and cinnamon sticks.
- Place roasting pan on top of highly heated grill and close lid. Bring grill temp back to high and then lower front and back burner to lowest level and turn middle burner OFF.
- Roast pork butt at 225˚F (110˚C) for 6–7 hours. Yes, that’s 6–7 hours y’all!
- Grill temp can creep up! Check once in awhile to maintain temp. As it cooks you may find that only the back burner needs to be on low to maintain the correct temperature.
- The liquid may evaporate over the cooking time. Add water when necessary to maintain 2 inches (5cm) of liquid in pan throughout cooking period.
- When your meat thermometer reads 175–180˚F (80˚C) or when the pork begins to pull itself apart, remove pan from grill and let pork rest, lightly covered with foil, for 30-45 minutes.
- When you can handle the heat from the meat, take off those diamond rings and get on in there with your digits, and pull baby, pull!
- Oooooooooooooooooo so good.
Nutrition
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil in a heated skillet/sauce pan
- 4 slices salt pork
- 1 white onion cubed ½
- 2 shallots thinly cubed
- 6 bulbs garlic smashed
- 1 tbsp ginger thinly sliced, fresh
- 1 Ancho Chili Pepper my favorite pepper, Poblano, dried
- 330 ml bottle stale beer opened from the last party (and another for back up to thin the sauce if necessary)
- 2 cups smokey lends a taste of wood/briquets store-bought barbecue sauce (fondly known as “sause” in TX)
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce lends a sense of a Bloody Mary cure
- ½ cup Heinz ketchup (plays as a thickener and sweetener) (plays as a thickener and sweetener)
- 1 tbsp French’s Mustard or any mustard that tastes good on a ball park hot dog
- 1 A seasonal bouquet garni of 3-4 Fresh Herbs like cilantro, parsley, thyme
- 2-3 cups chicken broth it’s all about the broth in my kitchen
- ½ cup brown sugar
Instructions
- In a heated skillet or saucepan sprinkle a circle of olive oil.
- Add 4 slices of salt pork, cubed.
- Cook over medium heat, rendering fat until pieces are crispy. Remove crispy salt pork and place on naked plate; no paper towels please.
- Add ½ large white onion, cubed.
- Add 2 shallots, cubed, and cook both onion and shallot till translucent. A couple of minutes before both are translucent, add 6 cloves smashed garlic.
- Add 1 tbsp fresh sliced ginger.
- Add 1 Ancho Chili Pepper, chopped.
- Sautee all until the ginger, garlic and Ancho Chili smells tingle your nose.
- Add 1 stale beer and brew all flavours together rendering alcohol and concentrating flavour. This may take 5 minutes.
- Add all other ingredients, except 1 cup chicken broth, a second beer, and water.
- As the sauce cooks, use the stale beer, chicken broth and/or water to maintain the consistency of a barbecue sauce you prefer.
- Crumble crunchy salt pork pieces and stir into the barbecue sauce.
Nutrition
Do let us know if you make our Texas Style BBQ Pork recipe by Rusty Irons from Austin, Texas. We’d love to know how it turns out for you.
I’ve had this Pork Butt before and let me tell you it is to die for. It’s real easy to cook but you really need to make the BBQ sauce. Rusty is one he’ll of a cook so just follow her recipe and you will not be disapointed.
It is sublime, isn’t it?! I recall eating it at the end of a long night of drinking and dancing at The Broken Spoke and it was a perfect way to end the night!
Thanks for dropping by!
How does one get a “stale” beer? Open it? Let it sit on the shelf for 2 years?
Yep, just open in and sit it on the shelf. It only takes a couple of hours and it’s flat. Or stale. You know what I mean ;-)
Stale beer is critical giving the sauce a bite and enhanced beer flavor. 1/2 hr in the Texas summer sun will do it after opening.
And, if you cook like me, often by the seat of my memory pants, it’s good to have a few extra stales ready if your sauce gets thick and your still coaxing the flavors out of the ginger, herbs, anchos and other ingredients. Yum
One of the things I miss about Texas is the BBQ. It is very difficult to find decent BBQ here in San Diego. I always though I would need a smoker for good BBQ, but this recipe sounds so good and easy. I may even try it this weekend :-)
Do let us know if you try it, Danielle! And we’d love to see photos. Thanks for dropping by!
I can not believe how good my kitchen smells right now. I’m dying to taste this but still have another 3 hours to go!
Fantastic! Let us know how it turns out :)