MEXICAN ALL CHEESE TOSTADA BASKET WITH BARBECUE PULLED PORK

GLUTEN FREE

Wonderful crispy cheese tostada basket stuffed with crunchy ice berg lettuce, refried beans, more cheese, succulent barbecue pulled pork finished off with fixings of pico de gallo, sour cream, guacamole, red jalapeños chillies and fresh lime.

When I make slow cooked pulled pork I always make extra to be efficient with the use of my oven for 3-4 hours, this also gives my family lots of variations for the week, stuffed tacos, crispy chimichangas, burritos, wraps, sliders and sloppy joe’s.  This freezes well too.

Slow Cooked Pulled Pork 3-4 hours

Ingredients 

(makes  2)

Cheese Tostada Basket

500g Mexican mix grated cheese

(equal mix of mild cheddar, Red Leicester and mozzarella)

(reserving 100g for later)

Pulled Pork

1 kg pork (butt) shoulder

1.5 ltr coke cola

Water

5 tbsp bbq spice rub

(make your own rub recipe below)

Barbecue Rub Spice

4 tbsp molasses dark brown sugar

1 tbsp chipotle dried chilli flakes

1 tbsp sweet paprika

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

2 tsp sea salt

Fixings

Re fried beans

Guacamole 

Sour cream

Iceberg lettuce chopped

1 lime halved

Red jalapeños sliced

Pico de gallo

2 tomato finely diced

1 small red onion finely diced

1 jalapeño finely diced

1/2 lime juiced

1 tbsp roughly chopped fresh coriander

1 pinch sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

Cheese Tostada Basket

Pre heat your oven 160 C / 315 F.  Line a baking tray with parchment paper, place 200g of cheese in a level circle twice place in the oven to melt and get a little crispy around the edges approx 15 minutes. Take a muffin baking tray and turn it upside down using a spatula lift up the circle of melted cheese and lay over the raised muffin tin encouraging the sides to hug the muffin tin shape to create the basket, leave to cool and set.  Once set your are ready to layer in the fillings.

The Pork Butt

Pre heat the oven to 160 C / 315 F.  Rub the pork generously all over with the BBQ rub, place the pork in a deep roasting tin pour in all the coke cola, top up with water to cover the meat and then cover the tin with foil, place the roasting tin in the oven and slowly cook for approx 3 1/2 hours.

When your cooking time is up to check that the pork is super tender, take a fork and push in to the shoulder then pull down if the pork gently pulls away with ease, it is cooked.  Remove the pork from the cooking stock and place on a large plate, keep the pan with all the stock to one side for now, take the pork, remove the skin and fat and discard, break down the pork slightly with your hands and pop back in to the roasting pan with all the BBQ stock and leave the pork to absorb the gorgeous braising stock liquor for ten minutes or so, drain the stock off through a sieve in to a fat separator jug this stock is ready to make the barbecue sauce to coat the pulled pork in.

Homemade BBQ Sauce

500ml coke a cola rib stock

1 1/2 cup tomato ketchup

1/4 cup soft brown sugar

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 tsp chipotle powder

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper to taste

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan combine and bring to a simmer, adjust the seasoning and chilli powder to taste, simmer gently until thickened, toss the pulled pork in the barbecue sauce.

To assemble the tostada basket heat the re fried beans and place in the bottom of the basket, sprinkle over a little of the reserved cheese, next add the iceberg lettuce another sprinkle of cheese, some jalapeño slices, lime juice, pulled pork then finish off with sour cream, guacamole, more jalapeños and pico de gallo.