Smoked Pork Roast

I love smoked pork product! There's just something about the hunk of pork smoking away in the back yard for an entire afternoon that makes me sooooo happy. This rub recipe came from our friend Jody. I modified it a bit and have used it on chicken, pork, and venison. In fact, one recipe makes enough rub for 2 roasts, or 1 pork roast and two chickens. We made the latter last weekend. Chicken for a backyard dinner party on Saturday night and pork for Sunday dinner with the family. 


We had a hard time getting the chicken fully cooked in the smoker, so we finished it off in the oven at 350F after letting it smoke for abut 4 hours. The pork on the other hand was done in 4 hours. Since the chicken finished in the oven we had a bunch of pan juices left over. Sunday morning I made a vinegar sauce with the chicken pan juices. 


We sliced the pork because it was a bone-in ham roast and it sliced nicely; we served it with the vinegar sauce. This would also make a great pulled pork. 


Rub
2 whole, dried ancho peppers, seeds removed
3 Tablespoons whole black pepper corns
3 Tablespoons course salt
¼ cup paprika* 
3 cloves garlic
1 onion

Blend all ingredients in a food processor. Make sure to start with the peppercorns, ancho peppers, and salt before adding the other ingredients; otherwise you'll end up with a bunch of whole peppercorns and you want them to be ground up.

Rub the paste onto your meat*. If you're cooking chicken, make sure to get the rub under the skin. Smoke the meat until it reaches the correct internal temperature*.

Notes:
*You can use any combination of sweet and/or smoked paprika. Jody likes to use 1/8 cup smoked paprika with 1/8 sweet paprika, but I only had sweet paprika last weekend and that was great too. 


*If you want to make the vinegar sauce below, save out 2 teaspoons of the rub for the sauce. 

Vinegar sauce
1 cup broth/pan juices, cooled and fat removed from the top
2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons leftover rub

Combine ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer over medium heat for about an hour, or until the sauce reaches a taste/consistency that you like. With vinegar sauces, everyone has a different level of vinegar love :)