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.