DBWallis
TVWBB Super Fan
Tonight's dinner was applewood-smoked extra-thick pork loin chops, loaded twice-baked sweet potatoes and spicy grilled cauliflower.
The pork loin steaks were huge... two of them weighed in at just about 2 pounds. I brined them for about 6 hours in salted apple cider, and rubbed them with a simple mix of salt, black pepper, sweet paprika and a little brown sugar:
Here they are after about 90 minutes. In order to get a little longer smoke time, I put the meat on when the smoker hit 100, and let the temp build to about 225 by the time they were done. One was thinner than the other, so I put the temp probe in it, and pulled it when it hit temp. I moved the probe to the other chop and let it continue until done. Since I was going to do a reverse sear, I pulled the meat at an internal temp of 135 degrees. Here the meat is slathered with butter and waiting for the grill to come up to temp (see the grilling forum for a description of the fun that ensued at the end of this cook!):
Here is the smaller of the 2 cuts after the sear:
And finally, the pork, sweet potato and cauliflower ready to eat:
The meat was very smokey and the brine left it very juicy and well seasoned inside and out. Rather then finishing the potatoes on the grill, I put them back on the still-hot smoker to melt the cheese and warm the filling, and that provided just a hint of smoke on them which was subtle but quite nice. The cauliflower was seasoned with EVOO, salt, pepper, chili powder and smoked paprika, and with the exception of being a little undercooked, was also quite flavorful.
All in all, this was a wonderful Sunday dinner.
ETA: The potato recipe called for drizzling the scooped-out potato skins with olive oil and grilling for another 10 minutes. I cheated and used bacon fat
The pork loin steaks were huge... two of them weighed in at just about 2 pounds. I brined them for about 6 hours in salted apple cider, and rubbed them with a simple mix of salt, black pepper, sweet paprika and a little brown sugar:
Here they are after about 90 minutes. In order to get a little longer smoke time, I put the meat on when the smoker hit 100, and let the temp build to about 225 by the time they were done. One was thinner than the other, so I put the temp probe in it, and pulled it when it hit temp. I moved the probe to the other chop and let it continue until done. Since I was going to do a reverse sear, I pulled the meat at an internal temp of 135 degrees. Here the meat is slathered with butter and waiting for the grill to come up to temp (see the grilling forum for a description of the fun that ensued at the end of this cook!):
Here is the smaller of the 2 cuts after the sear:
And finally, the pork, sweet potato and cauliflower ready to eat:
The meat was very smokey and the brine left it very juicy and well seasoned inside and out. Rather then finishing the potatoes on the grill, I put them back on the still-hot smoker to melt the cheese and warm the filling, and that provided just a hint of smoke on them which was subtle but quite nice. The cauliflower was seasoned with EVOO, salt, pepper, chili powder and smoked paprika, and with the exception of being a little undercooked, was also quite flavorful.
All in all, this was a wonderful Sunday dinner.
ETA: The potato recipe called for drizzling the scooped-out potato skins with olive oil and grilling for another 10 minutes. I cheated and used bacon fat
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