Barbecue Pork Puffs
Kitchen Tested 
- Yield 60 pieces
- Prep 60 mins
- Cook 390 mins
These amazingly rich bites put a tasty spin on tender Southern-style barbecued pork.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds pork belly, skin removed, fat trimmed to 1/2-inch (or substitute boneless pork shoulder)
- 1 quart chicken broth, or enough to cover pork
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 cup prepared barbecue sauce
- 3 tablespoons prepared horseradish
- 4 teaspoons coarse salt
- 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
- 1 package (11-ounce) puff pastry sheets (2 15x10-inch sheets)
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour, for flouring surface
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup bread and butter pickles, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 250F.
- Place pork belly in a baking dish and cover with chicken broth. Add bay leaf and thyme and cover with aluminum foil. Cook 6 hours, or until pork is meltingly soft. Remove from oven and refrigerate overnight, leaving pork in its cooking liquid.
- While pork is cooking, prepare sauce by stirring together barbecue sauce and horseradish. (Add more or less horseradish to suit your taste.) Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- Remove pork from cooking liquid, reserving liquid for another use. Pull pork into large chunks and place in a food processor. Add salt and pepper and pulse 8 to 10 times, until a chunky paste is formed. This will be the filling for your pastry.
- Place half the flour on a work surface. Place 1 pastry sheet on floured surface. Roll to 1/8-inch thick, long side facing you. Using a piping bag or your fingers, place a 1/2-inch thick log of filling along the edge of pastry. Gently roll pastry over filling until it overlaps itself by 1/2-inch, creating a seam. Brush a small amount of heavy cream on overlapping surfaces to seal roll, then cut finished roll away from remaining pastry sheet. Transfer finished roll to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Repeat to create 2 more rolls from the first sheet of pastry.
- Repeat process with remaining pastry sheet and filling. (You may freeze the rolls at this point to use later.)
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Brush rolls with remaining heavy cream and bake 25 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown. Remove and let cool slightly. Slice each roll into 10 pieces and arrange on a serving platter. Drizzle with horseradish barbecue sauce and top with diced sweet pickle.
