Portuguese “Carne de Vinha d'alhos” Pulled Pork Recipe
This past Christmas, sitting around the kitchen talking food with my family, the subject of marinated pork came up. My family, on my step fathers side is Portuguese and I have been subject to many traditional dishes, most of which I never appreciated as a teenager. My step-brother in-law pulled out his “Carne de Vinha d'alhos” that he had been marinating for the past day for us to sample as we sat around after dinner. In the Azores this is known as vina dosh (pronounced vinya dahj) and that is what my family calls it, simply translated as “meat with wine and garlic” or in this case, pork with wine and garlic. He had the butcher cube up some pork shoulder and he added the traditional marinade ingredients (see below), left it in the refrigerator for 24hrs, 72 hrs is better and then proceeded to fry up for us.
Floods of great memories started to return as I remembered the days of watching pops marinade, skewer on his spits and then grill cubes of meat for the family meal. So delicious!
Well, the “Vina dosh” that we snacked on was every bit as delicious as it smelled and it smelled good! Ours was fried up to a nice crispiness similar to burnt ends on a perfect brisket. Quickly I wrote down the recipe, tucked it into my pocket for safe keeping, mind storming through various ideas to bring some of my families tradition to these pages. I asked if anyone had done “Pulled Pork” sandwiches this way? No, but I did get a recipe for ribs and wrote this down quickly also… just encase I needed a another recipe.
Traditionally “Vina dosh” is marinated for 3 to 4 days, in fact I was told that my step grandparents used to place the marinated pork in a crock and place this under the sink for 3 days! Not recommended these days but it just goes to show you, that the good old days way of doing things never hurt anyone, who screwed all of this up anyway?
Portuguese Pulled Pork Recipe
My first attempt at making Portuguese “Carne de Vinha d'alhos” Pulled Pork, went rather well I think. The smell from the marinade was just heavenly and it actually lingered into the pulled pork after it was cooked. I took a 3lb pork bone-in shoulder and marinaded it for 48hrs, here is the marinade recipe:
2 c apple cider vinegar
2 c red wine – I used a Cabernet Sauvignon
1 1oz packet of pickling spices – used a packet of “Especias Mixtas – mixed spices” from El Guapo. (Make sure they have hot pepper pods in it or and some of your own.)
4 garlic cloves, smashed
How to make BBQ Pulled Pork, Portuguese style
Place your pork shoulder into a large 2 gallon zip close bag and pour in your ingredients.
Seal tightly, place in a large bowl and marinade for 3 days.
Mine was only marinaded for 2 days, I think 3 days would have been better, I will do that when I shoot a video of this cook in a couple of weeks.
Your pork will turn a bright red, no worries there, that color gets lost during the cooking process.
I used my Grill Dome and mesquite lump charcoal for this cook, stoking my heat and settling in at 225° F with a drip pan set underneath the pork shoulder filled with water.
The pork shoulder was patted dry and rubbed with a basic All Purpose BBQ Rub.
This cook lasted almost 10 hours till completion ,with a 1 1/2 hour stall at around 156° F.
No “Texas Crutch” (aluminum foil) was used either. I cooked it without any covering.
Final temp when done was 196° and next time I will go to 203° F or so, but it was way past my bedtime and I was getting tired, which meant I wasn't staying up for the final 8 degrees.
Results of this cook where outstanding!
I loved how the marinade lingered in the meat during the cook and help develop a nice bark on the meat. The big questions is, did it help to marinade the pork? I won't judge that until my next cook when I marinade it for 3 days and cook to 203° F …
How do you like to BBQ your Pulled Pork?
