Pork and beans

This might not be what you think of when you hear the name "pork and beans." As I said yesterday, I made pulled pork over the weekend. On Saturday, I cooked a very lean 2.5 lb. pork shoulder roast for 8 hours in the slow cooker, with a lot of spices and about half a cup of vinegar. When the meat was tender, I took it out of the cooker and let it cool overnight. I warmed it up just slightly yesterday morning and pulled or shredded it. In French, this is called un rôti de porc effiloché. You could do the same thing with turkey legs, discarding the bones, cartilege, and skin. Just below, you can see what the pulled pork looked like.

I had found some haricots plats (Romano green beans) at the supermarket for the first time in a while. They are a variety of haricots verts (green or string beans) and I like them a lot. You could substitute other green beans or even a different green vegetable.

After trimming the beans and blanching (par-boiling) them, I melted some duck fat (you could use butter, vegetable oil, or some other fat) in a frying pan and heated up the beans and some pulled pork in it.

To round out the meal, instead of cooking pasta or potatoes, for example, we decided to make a pan of corn pone to have with the pork and beans. That's a style of corn bread. It all went together very well, I think.