Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork with Asian Slaw

Last weekend I invested in a slow cooker and I feel like it may have been a decision that will change my life. It came from trying to find a recipe for pulled pork which didn't involve one. That turned out to be impossible so I set off to Argos and got a nice big Breville one for £17.29. Aside from chilli, I wasn't sure what else a slow cooker was good for but having googled a couple of recipes I am dying to try them all out. But back to the task at hand, the first recipe I tried was from Lorraine Pascale. I've adapted the quantities slightly as I thought it wise not to make pulled pork for 12 on the first attempt (I definitely would have eaten it all). Even though I knew the idea of a slow cooker is to bung everything all in and leave it alone, I was still surprised at how easy this was. I'll certainly never be tempted to buy any of the ready made joints again!

For the pork:

• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp mild chilli powder
• 3 tbsp five-spice powder
• 1 tbsp light muscovado sugar
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
• 600g boneless pork shoulder

For the slaw:

• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp soy sauce 
• 2 tbsp natural yoghurt
• 1/4 red cabbage 
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 carrot
• Large handful of fresh coriander 
• 6-8 wraps  

(Serves 3-4)

Place the soy sauce, chill powder, five- spice, sugar, garlic and ginger in a slow cooked and mix well together. Sit the pork shoulder in the slow cooker and massage in the spice mixture. Put the lid on and cook on low for 3 hours. Now, at this point, I got a bit bored so I turned it up to high (adding in about 50ml water to stop the pork drying out) for about two hours and then one more hour on low.

Close to serving time, make the slaw. Shred the cabbage, onion and carrot really thinly and put in a large bowl. Drizzle over the sesame oil, soy sauce and yoghurt and toss well.

Once the pork is ready it should fall away really easily. Shred using a fork and serve with the slaw on top of slightly warm wraps.