Brined, Smoked, and Brandied Pork Chops

This is my take on the Pork Chops in Brandied BBQ Peach Sauce recipe from Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse.

The folks at Dinosaur start with grilled, center-cut pork chops. I went with  brined and smoked 2-inch thick chops that I cut from the rib end of a pork loin. While they’re not quite as tender as center cut chops, they have plenty of flavor and the brining keeps them very moist.

Brined
4-5 thick-cut pork chops
4 cups water
1/3 cup kosher salt
1/3 cup molasses
1/3 cup cider vinegar
2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns

Bring the water to a boil and add the salt, molasses, vinegar, and peppercorns. Reduce heat and stir until salt is dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool. Arrange the chops in a lidded plastic container or zip-top bag. Cover with the brine, making sure all of the chops are submerged. Seal and let the chops sit in the brine in the refrigerator for no more than 2 hours.

Smoked
While the chops are brining, set up the grill for an indirect cook that will burn for at least 2 hours at 225 to 250°F. Use a drip pan under the grid to catch the fat. Once the grill is up to temperature, add the smoking wood. I like apple word for pork chops. If using a gas grill, place 2-4 cups of soaked wood chunks in the smoker box. If using a charcoal grill, toss a fist-sized lump right into the coals.

Remove the chops from the brine and arrange them on the grill. Close the lid and cook for 30 minutes. Flip the chops and continue to cook until the chops reach and internal temperature of 145°F, about another 30 to 45 minutes. Remove chops to a plate and keep warm.

Brandied
1 pound fresh peaches
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup brandy
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel peaches by cutting an “x” into flesh on the bottom of of each peach and submerging them in boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove from water and the skins should peel right off. Pit peaches and cut them into medium slices.

In a skillet over medium heat, melt butter and saute ginger until soft. Add peach slices and brown sugar. Stir until everything is well combined and the peaches have begun to soften. Add the 1/4 c. of brandy and very carefull ignite. Cook until flame dies. Add BBQ sauce, cinnamon, and salt and pepper to taste. Ladle sauce over pork chops and serve with Dinosaur’s potato salad.

Paella

Paella is Spain’s classic dish of saffron-infused rice combined with various meats and seafood. I love making this simple version on our Big Green Egg. It’s one of my favorite dishes to make for guests as an early dinner on Sunday afternoons.

It looks a little complicated, but it’s really only about a half hour or so of prep work, and another 45 minutes or so on the grill.

Ingredients

3 cups chicken broth
1/2 pound small raw shrimp, shelled
1/2 pound cleaned calamari, cut in rings
1/2 pound bay scallops
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 2 inch chunks and lightly salted
1/4 lb of Spanish cooking chorizo, cut in 1/4 inch slices
1 (14.5 ounce) can petite diced tomatoes, undrained
1 red or yellow bell pepper, cut into 2 inch strips
1 1/2 cups Bomba or Calasparra rice
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons of sweet smoked Spanish paprika
1/2 teaspoon of saffron
Olive oil
Lemon wedges, to garnish

Heat the broth with the saffron and the paprika. Keep warm and nearby.

Get your grill up to medium-high (about 400°F). You want to provide a wide, even heat that can be maintained with the lid open. You don’t want any hot spots. You can do this on most grills by cooking indirectly, or by using a diffuser like a pizza stone under the pan.

Use a shallow metal pan with about a 13-14 inch bottom. I really like this enameled paellera, but you could also use a chef’s pan. Add enough olive oil to cover to the bottom well. Heat the oil for a few minutes and then add the chicken pieces and fry until brown. Remove the chicken to a plate.

Add the chopped onion and garlic. Saute until the onion is soft. Add the tomatoes and cook until they break down and the mixture thickens and darkens. Add more oil if needed. This is the sofrito – it adds a lot of depth to the dish and provides a base for the rest of the dish.

Add the rice and chorizo and saute 1-2 minutes.

Stir in the chicken broth and try to spread the rice out as evenly as possible. Once you have a relatively uniform layer, leave it alone. The rice needs to sit undisturbed on the bottom of the pan to developed the tasty brown crust called the soccarat.

Arrange the browned chicken, scallops, shrimp, calamari, pepper, and peas on top of the rice. Try to make it even and pretty. Close the lid and lower your grill temperature to 350°F degrees. Cook undisturbed until all the liquid is absorbed – about 30 minutes.

Once the liquid is gone, bump the heat up to 400°F and start listening closely. The paella will start to crackle, and you might smell a toasted odor that tells you the rice is browning and forming the soccarat. Test by running a spatula under the rice to feel for a slightly bumpy bottom. Once you feel this, remove the paella from the heat.

Let the paella rest 5  minutes before serving.

Pulled Pork a la Alton

I adapted Alton Brown’s molasses brine to make one of the most tender and moist batches of pulled pork to ever come out of my Big Green Egg.

Ingredients
2 quarts water
12 ounces kosher salt
1 cup molasses
1 tablespoon chili powder
Basic Pig Rub (or your favorite barbecue rub)

6 to 8 pound pork shoulder roast (Boston butt)

The Brine

Combine molasses, salt, chili powder, 1 tablespoon of the rub, and water in 6 quart stockpot over medium heat. Stir and cook only until the salt has dissolved and everything is well-combined. Remove from heat and let cool.

Trim excess fat from pork shoulder. Make shallow cuts through the remaining fat cap every half inch or so.

Put the roast in a big Ziploc bag and add the brine. Squeeze out the air and seal the bag. I like to put the bagged roast right back in the stockpot and arrange it so that the meat is fully covered by the brine.  Refrigerate for at least 8 hours, overnight is better yet.

The Cook

Remove the roast from brine and pat dry. Dust heavily with barbecue rub, working it in with your hands to get a good coating. Wrap the roast in plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to cook.

Set up your cooker for an indirect cook of at least 18 hours at 225°F. Add some chucks of pecan or hickory for smoke. Use a drip pan to catch the fat as it renders off.  Pork butts take about 2 hours per pound to cook at this temperature, so this is really a job for a smoker or ceramic cooker.  I like to set it up as an overnight cook starting at 6pm so I can plan on serving pulled pork for lunch the next day.

Begin checking butt for doneness after about 10 hours of cooking. Pork butts are done when the collagen and connective tissue has melted into tasty gelatin and the meat literally starts to fall apart. I like to get mine to about 190°F internal, and then wrap it in a double layer of heavy duty aluminum foil and put it back on the cooker for another hour or so until it reaches 210F internal.

When the butt is done, remove it from the cooker and let it rest in the foil for an hour. When it has cooled a little,  pull the meat apart using a couple of forks (or better yet, a pair of these bear paws) to separate the fibers. The idea is to remove all the remaining inedible bits, break the meat down into bite-sized pieces, and ensure an even distribution of the chewy bark.

I like to serve it on cheap white buns with dill pickles, sweet potato chips and an assortment of barbecue sauces.

Country Eggs Benedict

This is a gluten-free variation of my favorite breakfast – biscuits and gravy.

Ingredients

1 pound pork breakfast sausage
2 cups milk
1/4 cup gluten-free flour (I like Pamela’s Amazing Bread Mix or Gluten-Free Pantry Country French Bread Mix)
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
4 gluten-free waffles (I used Van’s Frozen Wheat Free Buckwheat – sweet and tasty)
4 eggs

Directions

Cook sausage in a large skillet until uniformly brown. Do not drain. Add sage, red pepper, salt, and black pepper and stir to combine. Add flour and cook over low heat for 5 minutes until flour forms a roux and begins to brown. Remove pan from heat and stir in milk a little at a time. Return to medium-high heat and stir occasionally until gravy comes to a simmer and starts to thicken. Reduce heat to low.

Prepare the eggs. Any style is fine, but I really like them fried sunny side up with runny yolks. Toast the waffles and then top with eggs and sausage gravy.

Carnitas

When we go out for Mexican, I almost always order these golden bits of piggy goodness. I kept trying to make them at home, but had a hard time duplicating the combination of crispness and tenderness that really makes this dish work so well.

Truly authentic versions slowly fry the pork in lard. This recipe uses a kind of reverse braise to achieve a very similar and tasty result.

I like making this in a Dutch oven on the Big Green Egg. You could do this recipe in the oven or on the stove, but then you’re missing out on all the wonderful flavor that wood smoke brings to the party.

Ingredients

4 pounds boneless pork shoulder roast (aka Boston Butt)
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup peanut oil
1 large onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon grated orange peel

Directions

Set your grill up for at least a three hour cook over indirect heat at 300°F. I used a little oak for smoke.

Cut pork into chucks, discarding any big pieces of connective tissue, but keeping all of the fat. The size of the chunks depends on how you like your carnitas. We like them fine and crispy, so I cut the meat into 2-inch pieces. Cut them larger if you like yours big and tender.

Combine all of the ingredients in a large Dutch oven with a lid. If necessary, add more broth or water so that the pork is just covered in liquid.

Put the covered pot on the grill and let simmer until pork is tender, stirring occasionally, about an hour and a half, adding more water if necessary to keep pork partially submerged. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Uncover the pot and continue cooking until liquid evaporates and the meat begins to brown. If there’s not enough fat rendered from the pork, add another 1/4 cup peanut oil. Continue cooking until the meat starts to get crisp. Check and stir about every 15 minutes until the meat is crispy, but not dry or burned.

Remove the Dutch oven from the heat. Cool the meat slightly and discard any pieces of fat or gristle.

Serve with warm corn tortillas, salsa, diced onions, and guacamole.

Gluten-Free Egg Rolls

I love Asian takeout food. I’ve been lucky that we have 2 takeout places close to us that have gluten-free menus. I can get all of my favorites – General’s Chicken, Singapore rice noodles, kung pao, and pad thai. The only thing missing is egg rolls. I can’t find takeout (or even frozen) GF egg rolls anywhere.

Finally, my dear wife suggested that we try and make our own using the rice paper wrappers that are typically used for spring rolls.

Ingredients

1 pound ground pork
1/2 head cabbage, thinly sliced
2-4 carrots, grated
1 medium onion, diced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons Hoisin sauce (gluten free)
2-3 Tien Tsin peppers
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground Szechuan or black  pepper
1/4 teaspoon 5-Spice Powder

1 package round rice paper wrappers (about 30 wraps)

Heat oil in a large skillet or wok until it’s hot and starts to shimmer. Add the Tien Tsin peppers and fry 2-3 minutes until very dark brown, but not burnt. Remove peppers and reduce heat to medium.

Add pork, garlic, and onion. Cook until the pork is evenly browned.

Add the cabbage and carrots. Mix well and cook until the carrots start to soften and the cabbage is a bright green.

Remove pan from heat and add Hoisin sauce, salt, pepper, and 5-Spice powder. Mix well to combine. Let filling cool for 30 minutes.

Assembling the egg rolls goes a lot faster if you have 1 person soaking the wrappers and 1 rolling the egg rolls. Dip wrappers one at a time into pan of hot water to soften – 30 seconds or so. You want them pliable, but not so soft that they tear.

Lay the wrapper on a tea towel. Spoon about a 1/4  cup of the filling onto the lower half of the wrapper. Fold the bottom edge of the  wrapper over filling, fold over both sides, and continue rolling. Place seam side down on a sheet of parchment paper.

We baked our egg rolls for about 10 minutes at 350°F. You can also deep-fry them in small batches, cooking until they are golden brown and crispy (about 3 minutes).

Pancetta Polenta Pizza – Meat in a Minor Key

Meat around our house usually appears in the form of a steak, slab or roast. So when my wife proposed making this Mark Bittman pizza recipe that claims to serve 4 but only calls for a scant 4 ounces of meat, I was more than a little skeptical. In the end, the pancetta added a great depth and wonderful pork flavor to the already rich and crispy pizza.  It was a big hit.

Ingredients

1 cup coarse cornmeal
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for pan
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup (about 4 ounces) chopped pancetta
1 pound spinach, washed, trimmed and dried
1 cup Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
2 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
Kosher or sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Brush a layer of olive oil on a baking sheet.

Combine milk with 2 1/2 cups water and a large pinch of salt in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring just about to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and add cornmeal, whisking to prevent lumps from forming. Turn down the heat to medium-low and continue cooking for about 10 minutes, whisking frequently, until the polenta thickens and it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan like thick oatmeal.

Stir 1 tablespoon oil into the cooked polenta, then pour it out onto the oiled baking sheet. Spread the polenta out until it’s about  1/2 inch thick. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and let cool. When it’s no longer hot, cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for an hour to firm up.

Once the polenta is chilled, bake it for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it begins to brown and crisp on edges. While the polenta crust is cooking,  heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft and pancetta is nicely browned, about 10 minutes. Remove onion, garlic, and pancetta out of pan and set aside. Add spinach to skillet and saute until it releases its water and pan becomes dry. Add the pancetta mixture back into the pan, stir to combine, and season with salt and pepper.

Remove the polenta crust from the oven, sprinkle with gorgonzola, then spread pancetta-spinach mixture evenly atop cheese. Top with basil and tomato slices, then drizzle with another tablespoon olive oil. Put pizza back in oven for 2 minutes, or until cheese begins to melt and pancetta and veggies are warmed through. Cut into slices and serve.

Baby Back Ribs

If I had to pick a cut of meat that benefits the most from the art of barbecue, it would be the lowly rib. It’s amazing what the proper application of smoke, spice, and a low flame does to this otherwise tough and fatty piece of pig.

I’m partial to baby backs, the ribs that come from closest to the backbone, underneath the loin muscle. They are generally leaner, more tender, very tasty, and a quicker cook than their spare rib cousins. While there are a lot of good rib recipes out there,  this is my sure-fire, simple, no-frills recipe that consistently produces good results with a minimum of fuss.

Preparation

The night before the cook, prepare the ribs by removing the membrane on the back side of the ribs and trimming any large amounts of fat or stray flaps of meat. Slather both sides of the ribs with a thin coating of yellow ballpark-style mustard. This acts as a marinade. The vinegar in the mustard helps make the ribs moist and tender, and it gives the rub something to hold on to.

Apply a generous coating of your favorite rib rub. This basic rub works great. The rub adds not only a whole medley of flavors, but helps to form a nice bark – a dark brown crust on the meat.  Start on the back side and apply a medium-heavy coating, actually working it into the ribs with your fingers. Turn the ribs over and put a heavier coating on the top side, also working it in.

Wrap the slabs in plastic wrap and store them overnight in the fridge. By morning the mustard will have almost disappeared, melting into the rub and forming a glaze on the ribs.

The Cook

Set up your grill for an indirect cook that will burn for at least 6 hours at between 225 to 250°F. Use a drip pan under the ribs to catch the fat.

Once the grill is up to temperature, add your smoking wood. If using a gas grill, place 2-4 cups of soaked wood chunks in the smoker box. If using a charcoal grill, toss a fist-sized lump right into the coals.

Take the ribs straight from the fridge, unwrap, and arrange bone side down on the grate. Use a rib rack if you need more room. Close the lid and for the first 2 hour of the cook, do nothing – no peaking, no looking, no touching, no nothing. The more often the lid gets opened the less actual cooking is going on and the greater the chance that they’ll dry out.

After the ribs have been on for 2 hours, flip the slabs. Cook for another hour and flip one more time.  Again, no peeking. Continue cooking bone side down until the ribs have been on about 4 hours total, then start checking for doneness.

When they are done, a full slab will “break” or almost fold in half and start to crack when you pick up one end with a pair of tongs. At this point the meat should also have pulled back from the bone at least half and inch from the end of the bones and a gentle tug on a couple of adjacent bones shows that they will come apart easily.  Expect around 5 to 6 hours of total cooking time to get to this point.

Once the ribs are done it’s time to sauce. Purists will skip this step, but I like a little sweetness added at to the ribs at the end of the cook. I think it helps to balance the flavors and keeps the bark a little chewy. For a commercial sauce, I like Bone Suckin’ BBQ sauce. If you want to make your own, my Thick & Tangy BBQ Sauce – v2.0 is particularly good on ribs. Sauce both sides with a light coating, put the ribs back on for 15 minutes, then sauce them again just on top.

Remove the ribs from the grill and let them stand for 10 minutes before serving.

More Canadian-Style Bacon

I’ve been making my own Canadian-style bacon for the past couple of
years. I started out doing it because it was kind of fun and unique (in an old-timey-frontier-kind-of-way) to preserve my own food. But once I
got the hang of it, I realized that it really wasn’t that hard to make
Canadian-style bacon that tasted a lot better than the grocery store
brands at a fraction of the price.

Ingredients

1 boneless pork loin (8 to 10 pounds)
1 tablespoon Morton Sugar Cure (Plain) per pound of loin
1 teaspoon white sugar per pound of loin
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon black pepper, ground
4 tablespoons maple syrup (for glazing)

Instructions

Trim excess fat and remove the silver skin from pork loin. Cut the
loin into two equal pieces.

Combine the Morton Sugar Cure, white sugar, brown sugar, and pepper.
Mix well. This is your dry cure. Place the loin pieces in a large
freezer bag and coat with the cure. Rub the cure into the meat,
covering all sides. Squeeze the air out of the bag and seal. Store in
the refrigerator for 5 days, flipping the meat over once a day. Liquid
will begin to collect in the bag – this indicates that the cure is
working. Do not drain it off.

On the 6th day, remove the meat from the cure and soak in cold water
for 1-2 hours to remove some of the salt. Dry off the meat and
refrigerate uncovered for an hour.

Set up your grill or smoker up for an indirect cook at 225°F for at
least 4 hours. Once the cooker is up to temperature, add your smoking
wood (I like hickory for this recipe). If using a gas grill, place 2-4 cups of soaked wood chunks in
the smoker box. If using a charcoal grill, toss a couple of fist-sized lumps
right into the coals.

Cook at 225°F until the internal temperature of the loin hits 150°F,
about 3 hours. Baste the top side with half the maple syrup. Cook
another 20 minutes, flip and baste the other side with the remaining
syrup. Cook another 20 minutes or until the internal temperature
reaches 160°F

Remove from the smoker and let cool before cutting into 1/8 inch thick
slices.

Country-style Ribs

This is an adaptation of Sally Schneider’s Lacquered Baby Back Ribs recipe from her book  A New Way to Cook. The rich and spicy sauce is used both as a marinade and to baste the ribs when they are just about done to give them a nice caramelized finish.

I often do this recipe with country-style ribs instead of baby-backs. Country-style ribs aren’t really ribs. They’re cut from the shoulder roast (a.k.a. Boston butt). There’s a good amount of meat there, along with enough fat to keep them tender when they’re cooked low and slow.

3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons dark rum
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon garlic powder
3-5 pounds of country-style ribs, boneless if possible Continue reading “Country-style Ribs”

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