Skewered Pork Loin Rib Chops, Smoked and Seared

 

The other day Kenji Lopez-Alt did a video on youtube demonstrating cooking pork loin rib chops vertically, held together by a skewer. He went to his butcher and purchased extra thick chops. I however noticed the Safeway ad this week has these chops 1 inch thick for $1.69/lb. Yes please. I got two packs with 10 chops, and got to work.

Before skewering, season the meat all over with your seasoning of choice. I used a squirt of vietnamese fish sauce, Lawry's seasoned salt, and cayenne pepper on the flat surfaces, and then after skewering them all together, dusted fat cap on the outside of the ribs with kosher salt and black pepper. I then created a little space between each chop for the smoke to waft through. 

For structural integrity, I used 3 skewers going one direction, and 1 on the opposite direction thru the middle. In an ideal world, there would be a little more space between the chops, but I wanted to cook all 10 at once.

Place the meat on the indirect side of the grill, with a half can of lit coals and chunk of hardwood opposite. Cover and cook at about 250 degrees for an hour or until internal temperture on a center chop is 130 degrees.

After an hour the chops have nice color on the exposed surfaces, especially the fat cap which faced the fire. Uncover the grill and let the fire get glowing hot. Place the ribs directly over the fire to sear the underside of the ribs for about 5 minutes (covered.)

You can compress the meat together at this point to place it over the move concentrated fire, or move the meat skewer around so all the ribs get some fire time. This should be another couple minutes or so. Just make sure all rib undersides get aggressively licked by the flames on the uncovered grill. Look back at the rib at the top of the page--juicy, tender, and delicious! 

Were they good? You bet! Smokey with charred bits, and tender centers. The outside chop areas were outstanding on their own. The inner loin (the 2 inch very center of each chop could have used some more flavor, but that's what BBQ sauce is for :-) Next time I'll let the seasoning penetrate for longer. This cook was just run-to-the-store, season, and cook. 

Tri Tip...TADA!

Time for another chapter in the reverse sear book. This time it's a tri tip smoked for an hour and a half, then finished over the coals. Let's get started!

Light some charcoal and place a piece of smoking wood over the lit coals. Put some foil under the grate, and put the tri tip on. Cover and let the grill come up to 250-275 degrees. 

After an hour and half (or when the internal temperature hits 130 degrees, put the meat directly over the coals, covered for 4 minutes. Repeat with the other side. Take the meat off and rest it on a heated plate covered with foil for 10 minutes.

Slice it across the grain and enjoy!

 

Meat Me in St. Louis

 Just a quick one--Costco had a 3-packs of St. Louis style ribs for 2 bucks a pound, so away we go. Usually I cut up the raw slabs into 4-rib sections, but today wanted to try a little experiment. Cooking the slabs whole and upright. I have 2 weber rib holders that i positioned to hold the ribs apart from each other and upright. Cooking temps and times were 235 degrees for 5 hours, inverting the ribs after 3 hours. At the 5 hour mark, I wrapped the slabs individually and put them in a hotel pan covered with foil to keep in the moisture, finishing them in the oven just shy of 250 degrees for another hour. Pictured above is at 3 hours just prior to flipping the ribs top to bottom.

Ready to wrap at 5 hours!

Eating time! As you can see, the ribs rendered beautifully. I cut them up and drizzled the juice back over them. Delicious!

Lamb Shoulder Roast

 This was one of those happenstance items that I probably would not have gotten had I not scored a marked down package of meat. The various bones in the lamb shoulder are intimidating to say the least--there's the shoulder itself, a big flat bone that I have no idea what it is--it looks the same as the big bone you'd pull out of a pork butt at the end of a cook, and a half dozen long ribs. There's also a bunch of cartilage and connective stuff. You get me? This is a weird chunk of meat. Originally I thought I'd braise it and just cook it til the meat fell off the bones, but it was too big for a 6.5 quart dutch oven, and too small for the 13 quart. So on to the weber kettle it went.

I seasoned it with just salt and pepper, placed a drip pan with some water below, and lit one side of the coal pile with cherry chunks on top. When the fire caught, and covered the grill and got the temp to about 250 degrees and left it alone for the next 4 hours, checking the temp periodically.

After 4 hours, I wrapped the roast in butcher paper, pouring the fat from the drip pan on the butcher paper, and over the meat before wrapping tightly and returning it to the grill. If you want the meat to be fall-apart tender, cook it to over 200 degrees internal temp. I was aiming for more chew so I choose to cook it to 185 degrees.

After another 3 hours, I pulled the roast and let it rest for 45 minutes before slicing. I sliced off 6 rib chops and did the best I could making slices of the remaining roast. There is a definite advantage to cooking it to 200+ degrees and just pulling all meat free if the bones.

Not a cut I would do again unless the markdown fairies bless me with another one. It was tasty, but a leg o' lamb is easier. The bark was delicious, and the flavor was good--just not something I'd go out of my way for. 

Meat on a Stick--A Really Big Stick!

Turns out turkey white meat is not the most popular protein at our Thanksgiving table. This year I got a small whole turkey, and 9 turkey thighs to smoke separately. The whole turkey was only 13 lbs, and it's gonna get rotisseried. This works really well with the Weber rotisserie attachment for the 22 inch kettle. The attachment is a 10 inch tall ring that sits between the kettle body and lid. The ring has a bracket to hold the electric motor, and pass thru holes for the spit. I prepared the turkey simply--just trussed it, and put salt and pepper in the cavity, and salt/pepper/baking powder on the outside of the bird. Thanks to J. Kenji Lopez Alt for the tip of adding the baking powder to aid in crisping the skin. Something about Ph levels--I don't know--I'm not a scientist. Let the turkey rest in the fridge after seasoning it to further dry the skin--I just did it for 4 hours, but overnite is better.

The grill setup I use is a slow n sear insert with charcoal lit at one end of the pile, and wood chunks placed on top of the pile. Put a drip pan under where the turkey is going to be to catch the smoked turkey fat and juices for the gravy.

Mount the spitted turkey on the rotisserie ring, cover, and ideally run the grill at 250 degrees til it's done (175 degrees in the thighs, 155 degrees in the breast). Mine takes about 4-5 hours. The slow n sear insert does a good job moderating the coal burning. This cook got away from me, and the grill temp spiked at 350 but I got it down to 280-300. Total cook time was 3.5 hours. So the lesson is PAY ATTENTION to your grill temp.

Pull the turkey when it hits the desired internal temps--they'll rise some while resting the bird for at least 20 to 40 minutes. Carve it up and enjoy. Strain the the smoked drippings for the gravy. Yum! 

Baby Back, Baby Back, Baby Back...Ribs!

A screaming deal at Costco Business made me come home with a 3 packs of Baby Back ribs. 97 cents a lb (works out to about $3 per slab. All the prep is standard--dry the slabs with towel, slash the bottom membrane, and cut in half (6 to 7 ribs per half), then season with your favorite rub. Mine was brown sugar, kosher salt, cumin, old bay, paprika, oregano, and red chili flakes.

This cook was on a weber kettle with the slow n sear insert for indirect cooking, and the weber rib stand to hold the slabs. I piled on some hickory chips and cherry chunks and got the temperature to a steady 250 degrees.

2 and a half hours into the cook, I flipped all the slabs bottom to top and front to back to cook them evenly.

Another hour and a half and the ribs were ready to get wrapped (in this case I just put them all in a tightly sealed pan) and go into a holding oven at 225 degrees for an hour.

Right out of the oven and ready for eating.

Good smoke penetration and the bark was fine. I was a little scared that I overcooked them. Baby backs are loin ribs and definitely run a little drier, but spooning some of the rendered fat/juice from the warming tray over the plated slab gave plenty of juice to dip the next bite-spot into.

All in all, a good cook. Ribs had some tooth, but came off the bone clean. $1.50 for a half slab--I'd take these over the costco hot dog.

Assorted Bone-in Pork Chops

How often are you at the store and pass by a screaming deal on assorted bone-in pork chops? Seems like every other week these things are on sale at one chain or another for something less than $2/lb. These are so quick and easy to cook, and for that price, they really can't be beat. Even if you you're feeding someone who doesn't want bone-in chops, you cut the meat off the bone of a loin rib chop, and then you get the cook's prerogative of gnawing on the bone yourself.

My basic quick easy way to cook these guys is to season them an hour or so before cooking and them put them right on a direct fire for about 3 minutes a side (these are skinny 1/2 inch chops.

This package had 4 rib loin chops, 2 t-bone chops (loin/fillet), and 2 shoulder chops. You can go any direction with the seasoning from the simplest Lawry's seasoned salt and cayenne, to a home made rub, to a wet marinade (Korean BBQ flavors would ROCK!)

To get good color and a little charring on these puppies, I had the grill open until flare-ups occurred--about 2 minutes on super hot coals, then cover for another 90 seconds and flip. Cook for another 3 minutes and remove them to rest for a few minutes in a warm pan. Serve with some BBQ sauce or just scarf them down. Sometimes I mop them with sauce on the grill to finish them, but too often I lose too much sauce that way.