Pulled pork sandwich with pomegranate salad

Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Put a ridged griddle pan on a
high heat. When smoking hot, lay the pork on top and cook for about
eight minutes, turning as you go. For the last two minutes' griddling,
cover the pork in a large sheet of foil, so that the resulting smoke
infuses the meat. Remove and set aside.

Place a large, heavy-based pot for which you have a lid on a medium
heat; the pan has to be big enough to hold the pork snugly. Add the
vinegar, sugar, Szechuan pepper, cinnamon, chilli, soy, molasses
and tomato paste, plus one and a quarter teaspoons of salt, and heat
gently, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves. Remove four
tablespoons of the sauce to a bowl or ramekin and set aside.

Add the pork to the pot and spoon the pan juices all over it. Cover,
cook in the oven for an hour, turning the meat in the sauce from time
to time. Turn down the temperature to 130C/260F/gas mark ½ and cook for
two hours more, again turning the meat regularly in the sticky juices.
Turn down the heat again, this time to 120C/250F/gas mark ¼, and cook
for five to six hours more, turning the joint from time to time, until
the meat can easily be pulled off the bone. Remove and set aside.

When cool enough to handle, pull off and discard the bones and fatty
skin, then shred the meat into bite-size pieces back into the pot. Add
the reserved sauce, stir and keep warm.

For the salad, put all the ingredients in a bowl, add a
quarter-teaspoon of salt and toss. Stuff the pulled pork into the
baguette halves; put the salad in the bread, too, or serve on the side.