Week 7: New To Me - BBQ Pulled Jackfruit Sandwich

I'd heard of jackfruit being used as a meat substitute before, but I'd never come across it outside of a blog before I ended up having trouble finding chat masala in my local Indian market for last week's cauliflower meal. Luckily for me, I strayed into the cans of fruits I've never tried before section and found some cheap cans of unripe jackfruit which blogs had assured me could become a tasty sandwich.

Once I got home I found I'd need nearly a cup of BBQ sauce but only had about a quarter cup. This seemed a pretty good excuse to try my hand at making some, so I mashed a few ketchup rcipes, BBQ sauce recipes and the Tuatara Aotearoa Pale Ale I was drinking together... and not long after had the pot below bubbling away on the stove. Many recipes include worcestershire sauce which is generally not even vegetarian, let alone vegan. I've replaced it with some tamarind chutney which I picked up at the Indian market.

BBQ Sauce (about 3 cups)

• 200g Tomato Paste
• 2 Cups Brown Sugar
• 1 Cup Tuatara APA (or some other inferior beer)
• 1/2 Cup White Wine Vinegar
• 1/2 Tsp Liquid Maple or Hickory Smoke
• 1 Tbsp Dry Mustard
• 2 Tsp Paprika
• 2 Tsp Tamarind Chutney
• 2 Tsp Salt
• 1 Tsp Pepper
• 1 Tsp Ground Cumin
• 1/2 Tsp Cayenne
• 1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
• 1/4 Tsp Ground Cloves
• 1/4 Tsp Allspice

1. Throw all ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

While the BBQ sauce was cooling I rinsed the jackfruit a few times to try and wash out as much of the salty brine as I could, then patted them dry with a paper towel. The recipes I've seen for pulled jackfruit use a crockpot or some other slow cooking device, but as I don't have one I just threw the jackfruit in a Dutch oven with 3/4 Cup of BBQ Sauce and 1/2 Cup of water, covered the pot and put it in the oven at 100 C / 212 F.

After six hours, the sauce had darkened a little but it looked much the same.

Using two forks, the jackfruit can be pulled apart into strands and then after a few minutes on the stove top over a medium heat the sauce had reduced a little and was looking a lot more like pulled pork.

Once the pulled jackfruit was finished, all that was left to do was make up a sandwich with a kaiser roll, cabbage in tofu mayo and plenty of sliced jalapenos.