3-2-1 Competition Worthy Pork Ribs

Hi folks. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve sat down to enter a blog entry. I must admit, it’s just easier to post on FaceBook but then, we’re not all friends on FaceBook are we?

I’ve picked a few recipes to share just for fun. The first of which are these fine St. Louis style competition worth pork ribs.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• A pair of St. Louis style pork rib racks (we get ours at The Warehouse Club in Jurong for less than $10/rack!)
• A bit of regular yellow mustard
• “Memphis Dust” rib rub
  • 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup paprika
  • 1/4 cup garlic powder
  • 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
  • 2 tablespoons onion powder
  • 2 teaspoons rosemary powder
• A few knobs of unsalted butter
• Brown sugar
• A tiny splash of apple juice
• A good slathering of Competition Red Sauce (a la Big Bob Gibson’s recipe):
  • 1 1/4 cups (12.5 oz/355 g) ketchup
  • 1 cup water (8 oz/235 g) water
  • 3/4 cup (6 oz/170 g) vinegar
  • 3/4 cup (6 oz/170 g) tomato paste
  • 3/4 cup (4.5 oz/135 g) brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup (7.75 oz/220 g) corn syrup
  • 1/2 cup (4 oz/ 170 g) pure maple syrup
  • 4 tbsps (1.5 oz/100 g) honey
  • 3 tbsps (2.25 oz/60 g) molasses
  • 4 tsps (25 g) salt
  • 4 tsps (.75 oz/20 g) Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp (.75 oz/25 g) applesauce
  • 1 1/2 tsps (.25 oz/8 g) soy sauce
  • 1 1/2 tsps (.25 oz/5 g) liquid smoke
  • 1 tsp (4 g) onion powder
  • 3/4 tsp (2 g) cornstarch
  • 1/2 tsp (1 g) dried mustard powder
  • 1/2 tsp (1 g) cayenne powder
  • 1/2 tsp (1 g) black pepper
  • 1/8 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/8 tsp white pepper
  • 1/8 tsp celery seed
  • 1/8 tsp ground cumin

Prep is really simple. Wash off your ribs and pat them dry with some kitchen roll. Remove the membrane on the bone side of the ribs by prying it loose then tearing it off using a bit of kitchen roll. It really helps with the grip.

Then slather a bit of mustard on both sides of the rib racks. Some people omit this step, others swear by it. Me, I’m easy either way. The mustard, being a water-based product simply lets the rub adhere to the rack a bit better. Water works just as well to be honest as you’ll really not taste the mustard once you’re done.

Next you’ll coat your ribs liberally (like a Bernie Sanders) making sure that you’ve covered every centimetre. That will help with the bark and ensure that no matter where you bite down on that rib, you’ll get a good helping of the rub/crust.

Set up your smoker/grill for indirect heat and stabilise it at 225F (107C). Add in some wood chunks to get the smoke going. For this cook I used Beech wood. Nice and delicate.

Once you get that blue stream of smoke going, it’s time to put the ribs on. I placed a drip pan full of hot water under the ribs (and on top of the plate setter) to add some additional humidity inside the Big Green Egg. Living in Singapore, you really don’t need that.

Place your ribs down meat side up and set your timer for 3 hours. Go grab a beer, read a book, mow the lawn. You’ve got time.

When your timer pings, take the ribs back into the kitchen. Grab some heavy duty aluminium foil large enough to tightly wrap the ribs. Before you place the ribs down, sprinkle a healthy amount of brown sugar. Add three knobs of butter and a bit of honey drizzled. Place the ribs down, meat side down. Sprinkle some brown sugar, add some butter and honey onto the bone side. Now make a packet, add a splash of apple juice and crimp it all so that you’ve made an airtight seal. If the bones tear through, just use another piece of  foil.

Back onto the grill, meat side down for another 90 minutes to 2 hours. I took mine off a bit early because I didn’t want them to fall right off the bone. Now, add a bit more rub and slather with a good coat of Red Sauce. Place it back onto the grill for another 30 -60 minutes. Again, I did 30 as I didn’t want ribs over done. With practice, you’ll get the hang of the timing.

The last step is to get some flame going and char up the meat side of the ribs. I use Grill Grates and swear by them. Get the grid nice and hot and sear the ribs until you get some nice caramelisation happening.

Once ready, pull off the ribs and let them rest for at least 10 minutes. Then cut between the bones and serve.

My family loves this recipe and as I’m writing this, I’ve got two racks on the go just now.

Enjoy!

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Overall Heather Rating: 10/10

 

 

Bye Bye 2015…

Once again, Heather, Alex, Kalyna and I hosted friends from far and wide at our place to ring in the bells once again. And, as tradition would have it, we smoked two 8 lbs pork shoulders, some rib eye steak, smoked salmon, chile con carne and a whole heap of other things.

2015 was a good year but 2016 will surely be better. Thanks to everyone who made New Year’s Eve such a wonderful success.

Time to go vegetarian for a few days….or not.

A very special thank you to Mr Boon at Huber’s Butchery – he prepped the pork shoulder and was rewarded two days later with the LAST pulled pork sandwich. Thanks Ah Boon… you’re a legend!

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Coffee marinated ribeye with grilled pear, lettuce, walnut and Gorgonzola

Hi there dear readers, it’s been a while since our last post and well, for no other reason than I haven’t really grilled anything super fantastic to share recently…until last night that is! This recipe is not complex but theres a bit of prep that you need to do and your timing needs to be on the money just as you’re ready to plate.

Last night’s feast included coffee-marinated ribeye steaks, caramelised roasted pears with Gorgonzola cheese, walnuts and pomegranates, grilled tomatoes as well as roasted baby romaine lettuce with a Gorgonzola vinaigrette. Absolutely stunning dish and can be done easily on any grill (though a charcoal grill will always yield a better taste!)

So here’s what you’ll need:

• 4 ribeye steaks about an inch in thickness – I simply took two steaks and halved them
• 200 ml of strong black coffee (cold)
• 4 tbsp dark brown sugar
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard (the chunky kind)
• 1 tbsp fine wholegrain mustard (the smooth kind)
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 3 cloves crushed and minced garlic

Combine the marinade together and place the 4 steaks in a large resealable bag. Add the marinade and pop it in the fridge until you’re ready to grill. I let mine sit for about 6 hours.

The salad dressing goes like this:

• 2.5 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 25 g crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp walnut oil (this is expensive stuff but very well worth it… the taste that this oil yields is smooth and earthy!)
• a pinch of granulated white sugar

Mix it all up into a sealable jar and give it a serious shaking. This vinaigrette is absolutely delicious on any salad but particularly good on the roasted baby romaine lettuce!

For the salad you’ll need:

• 8 leaves of baby romaine lettuce (lightly oiled in EVOO and salted with a pinch of Kosher salt)
• 4 firm but ripe pears, peeled, halved and cored – also brushed with a bit of EVOO and a tiny bit of Kosher salt
• 100 g of Gorgonzola (split 4 ways)
• A generous handful of toasted walnuts, crushed
• Another generous handful of pomegranate seeds

Have all of this set up and ready to go because your steaks won’t take very long to grill.

Set up your grill for direct heat and get it nice and piping hot. As hot as she’ll go! I used Grill Grates which, for this meal, are essential. The aircraft grade aluminium really cranks up the surface temperature and sears steaks beautifully. Check out the cross hatch marks on ours. Grill the steaks for about 2 minutes then turn 45 degrees for another minute. Then flip them and do the same. If you have an instant read thermometer, pull off the steaks at 130F (54C.) Let the beef rest for about 5 minutes, which is just about the time you’ll need to grill the pears, tomatoes and lastly the lettuce. The lettuce should only roast for a minute or so. You don’t want it wilted.

We also used the coffee marinade and made a classic sauce to go with the steak. Simply take a tbsp of flour and mix it with a tbsp melted lard (I used lamb fat) until it makes a paste. Then add a spoonful of the marinade and keep adding it slowly until it all combines. Then bring it to a boil and let it thicken up.  You need to get it to boil to kill off the bacteria remaining in the marinade.

When you’re ready, slice the ribeye thinly at a 45 degree angle. Place your grilled pear on the plate, add the Gorgonzola cheese in the hollowed out portion of the pear and sprinkle some walnuts and pomegranate seeds on top. Put down the romaine lettuce and tomatoes and give them a sprinkling of the vinaigrette. Lastly, add the sauce you just made and you’re off!  Pair this meal with a hearty red wine and enjoy!

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Overall Heather Rating: 10/10

A special thanks to the Immerman crew who volunteered to be our guinea pigs for this new recipe. Thanks for the wine and whisky of course and all that hilarious dancing afterwards! What a night!

 

 

What a find! Imperial Kamado

 

So a neighbour was throwing away “an egg” and of course I had to pounce on it, just in case it was a real egg. It turns out that what he was throwing away was in fact a Large Imperial Kamado. The great grandfather of the Big Green Egg… the original deal.

Now, when we picked it up (thank Alex) it barely opened and everything was rusted shut. Painstakingly, I took apart all the metal work, bought an angle grinder and went to work restoring this Kamado to it’s original beauty.

Some parts were not salvageable but the good thing is that parts from the Big Green Egg were adapted and fit with minimal fuss. A new firebox, fire ring and bottom damper was all it took.

I figure I put about $400 back into restoring this Kamado and it was worth every second! It works just as well as an egg, though it probably is slightly less efficient in terms of holding heat in. The difference is that the Imperial Kamado is made of earthenware vs the Big Green Egg which is ceramic.

Thanks for chucking away this piece of history neighbour!

Perfect Lamb Rack

So here’s the easiest way to roast a lamb rack and have it taste like you’ve just eaten at a 3 Michelin star restaurant.

The trick to perfecting your lamb is to remove the fat cap entirely. Admittedly, I used to keep it on hoping that it would render down. Not a chance. You need to carefully trim your rack so that almost no fat remains on the outside. If you keep it on, you’ll get a chewy, almost impossible hunk of lamb fat that quite honestly does much better once rendered down and kept in the fridge.

Once you’ve removed your fat cap, tie up the rack with some butcher’s twine and place the lamb into a large zip top bag and prepare a simple wet marinade of olive oil, 1 head of garlic, salt, pepper and four stems of finely chopped rosemary. Let that sit in the fridge for as long as you can, preferably over night.

As with most joints of meat, I like to reverse sear them. The technique is simple but it takes a bit of practice to get it perfect. Enjoy the fun of learning how to do this.

Get your grill up to 225F and set it up for indirect heat. Place the lamb rack on the grid and insert a trusty internal probe. I used a touch of wood (birch, this time) but only a little, like a quarter handful.

Allow the internal temperature of the lamb rack to come up to 120F – remove it and then coat the rack in olive oil. Set it aside and now fire up the grill by opening up the air baffle below, remove the plate setter and get it as hot as it will go. The secret is now in the sear, getting a beautiful rich brown caramelisation all over this rack. I used the back side of one of my Grill Grates, rested over the Mini Egg. This aircraft grade aluminium gets screaming hot, really fast. Now simply put your oiled rack on and keep flipping it every few minutes to ensure an even crust. Remove the lamb once it reaches 130F internal temperature.

Let the lamb rest for about 5 minutes. Cut off the butchers twine between the bones and slice between them. We served this rack of lamb with roasted red pepper salad and rosemary/garlic new potatoes.

As you can see by my daughter’s face, this was a winning dinner. I asked if I could finish her lamb and she shot me a look that could kill!

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Overall Heather Rating: 10/10

Smoked Duck & Spinach-Stuffed Rib-Eye Roast

What a shame that you can’t taste via the internet as this rib-eye roast was an absolute winner! Once again, the Big Green Asian Egg wowed the crowd with a stuffed rib-eye roast that was out of this world.

My pal Andrew brought back a Black Angus 8 rib rib-eye roast from Australia a few weeks back. I’d been waiting for the right time to do something with it and that day came yesterday. I had researched how to make a stuffed rib-eye roast and I adapted the recipe do include smoked duck as a substitute for bacon. If you’re up for a bit of work, this roast is incredible and I’d highly recommend you give it a try.

As always, the first step is preparing your roast and in this case that means a bit of dry brining overnight. Simply salt the roast with Kosher salt ensuring a decent amount gets rubbed in throughout the joint. Cover it and put it in the fridge over night.

You can do the next bit (the stuffing) the day before and it goes a little like this.

You’ll need:

• 1 smoked duck breast (cut into cubes then pulsed in a food processor)
• 1/2 cup of finely chopped celery
• 1/2 cup of finely chopped shallots
• 7 cloves of finely chopped garlic
• 1x 10oz pack of frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed dry, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup creme fraiche
• 2 cups homemade breadcrumbs (I used a multigrain bread)
• 1/2 cup of chopped scallions
• 1 tsp freshly chopped sage
• 1 tsp freshly chopped thyme
• 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 small pack of baby portobello mushrooms, finely chopped
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 2 large eggs (but you won’t add them until 1 hour before you stuff the roast!)

Pulse up the duck breast and fry it up over medium heat in a pan with a bit of beef tallow (if you have some on hand.) Don’t let it get crispy, just cooked through. Add the celery, shallots, and mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes or until the vegetables start to go soft. Now add in the spinach and creme fraiche and cook for another 3 minutes. Season as required with a bit of Kosher salt and fresh pepper. Scrape it all into a deep bowl and let it cool down. Cover it with some cling film and pop it in the fridge. You’ll add the eggs an hour before you stuff the roast. Once added, mix it all up with your hands, ensuring an even mixture of stuffing and egg. Then spoon it out onto a baking sheet and smooth it out. Cover it with some cling film and let it set for about an hour to firm it up.

The meat has dry brined over night and now you’re ready to create the pocket for the stuffing. Stand the roast up with the bones facing upwards. Take a sharp knife and cut a pocket about 1/2 way through the roast about an inch away from the bones. Make one long continuous incision. Now get your stuffing and put a healthy amount into the cavity you created. Take some butcher’s twine and truss the roast between the rib bones. Try to ensure you make the roast look even to ensure even cooking. Once done it’s time to get it on the grill, for a low and slow experience.

Set up your grill for indirect heat and stabilise the temperature at 225 degrees F (107C). I added some whisky soaked oak chips for smoke and a drip pan with hot water to create a really humid environment, not that you really need that in Singapore! Place the roast on a v-rack above the drip pan, insert your trusty probe thermometer and close the lid. As with any big piece of meat, you need to cook to temperature, not time. This roast should take about 2 and a quarter hours to 3 in total.

Once you reach an internal temperature of 125F (52C) remove the roast and fire up the grill to “nuclear hot.” You’ll want to sear the outside of the roast over a very hot grid. Keep the lid open as you really don’t want to continue cooking the inside of the roast, just the outside. Once you’ve got a beautiful crisp evenly distributed over the roast surface, carefully remove it and let it rest for 5 minutes or so. Don’t bother tenting it as you really want the crust to stay crunchy!

We served the roast with a halloumi and roast tomato salad and a sweet potato dauphinoise. Heather of course topped the evening with her infamous mixed berry and basil pavlova. What a combination.

The evening was a celebration of friendship, fantastic wine and one or two gut splitting laughs, thanks to Rich. This particular post is dedicated to Paul and Rachel Cooper – two friends about to start a new chapter in their lives, post Paul’s retirement! Good luck you two and when you settle, make sure you buy a Big Green Egg.

I hope you all enjoy this meal as much as we did. It goes without saying, this was another perfect 10!

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Overall Heather Rating: 10/10

BBQ Garlic Prawn, Scallops & Mango Salsa

Two posts in 24 hours calls for a celebration. Last night Heather and I had some amazeballs ribs and tonight we kept the theme going with BBQ prawn, Japanese scallops and a spicy mango salsa that was absolutely to die for.

For the prawn make sure you keep the head and the shell on. Take a pair of sharp scissors and gently cut from the back of the head down towards the tail to de-vein the prawn. Nothing ickier than a gritty bit of poo to go along with dinner. Rinse the prawn in water and then simply put them in a heavy duty zip top bag, add about 7 cloves of minced garlic and about 5-7 tbsp of your favourite BBQ sauce. I used the ultimate rib sauce I made last night. Put the bag in a metal bowl and back into the fridge for a few hours.

When you’re ready to cook, get your grill nice and hot at about 400F (204C) – you’re going to grill with the lid up and on direct heat. I use “GrillGrates” which are by far the best thing to use when grilling prawn or anything delicate. I highly recommend anyone who grills to get a set. They can be used on a gas grill as well as a charcoal grill…simply amazing. Check them out here: http://www.grillgrate.com/

Place your prawn on the grates evenly spaced apart, not touching each other. Grill on one side for 3 minutes then flip and grill for another 3 minutes. Remove the prawn and transfer to a dish and cover it with aluminium foil. Finish up the prawn and place it on the dinner table.

Heather took care of the scallops, drying them first for a number of hours, then simply seasoning with S&P and into a hot pan with some butter. The mango salsa consisted of honey mango, cucumber, mint, a fresh chili pepper from our garden, green onion, lime juice, olive oil, Kosher salt,  avocado (to cut the heat a bit) and cherry tomato.Simply amazing!

The prawn were juicy, garlicky and just enough sauce on the shell to make for an amazing and wonderful Sunday meal!

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Overall Heather Rating: 9/10

Ultimate Ribs

If you’re looking for the Ultimate rib recipe, look no further…ladies and gents here it is. This is a variant on a few different recipes I’ve researched, pulling together what Heather thinks are the BEST ribs ever on the Big Green Asian Egg. So here’s what you’ll need to do!

Let’s start with preparing the rub. Many BBQ cooks keep their rub recipes a secret. That’s just plain silly in my opinion unless of course you’re competing in a competition or running your own restaurant. If you don’t share, the rest of us can’t get better at the craft.

Rub – Stage 1

• 2 tsp whole black peppercorns
• 2 tsp whole mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp celery seeds

Take the spices above and toast them in a small dry skillet over medium heat. You’ll know when it’s done when you get this amazing waft of spice filling your kitchen. It takes about 3-4 minutes in all. Remove the spices and let them cool a bit before transferring to a spice grinder.

Rub – Stage 2

Now add the following to the spice grinder and pulverise it to a nice fine grit.

• 3 tbsp paprika (smoked would be awesome too!)
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp pure sea salt
• 1.5 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp chili powder

Grind it all up and set it aside… your ultimate rib rub is now done.

Let’s move to the sauce next. In a large saucepan add the following ingredients:

• 1 can of high octane Coca-Cola (the regular stuff in the red can)
• 1 cup Heinz ketchup
• 1/4 cup Apple cider vinegar
• 3 tbsp molasses
• 2 tbsp pure Canadian maple syrop
• 2 tbsp ultimate rib rub (yes, the stuff you just made!)

Bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce the heat to low and let the sauce simmer (uncovered) for about 25 minutes. It’ll thicken up before you know it and it’ll go a gorgeous deep reddish brown colour. Let the sauce cool and then transfer it to an airtight jar. The sauce is good for 3 months however I’ve never ever seen enough to last more than a few weeks in this house!

Right, so now you’re done the necessary prep. Let’s get the ribs sorted next.

I purchased two slabs of frozen St Louis cut ribs from the local Singapore equivalent of Costco, The Warehouse Club. They were $9/slab and easily twice the size of the ribs I normally get from our friends at QB. Frozen ribs are fine by the way, though I do like to go to the wet market and occasionally buy fresh chilled pork, but that’s really for special occasions.

Thaw your ribs a few hours ahead of time, rinse them under cold water and then pat them dry on your cutting board. Some people insist on removing the silver skin. I don’t bother as it hardly makes a difference. Take a bit of vegetable oil and coat both sides of the slab. Now take your rub and give both the top and bottom a good liberal coating. Don’t forget to get the sides ensuring you get some rub between the bones. Now take each slab and wrap them tightly in some heavy duty aluminium foil. Try to make an airtight packet so that the juices don’t run out. Now place them in the fridge for a few hours. The longer the better. If you’re pressed for time, that’s ok too but I like to let the meat try and absorb the rub as much as possible.

Set up your grill for indirect heat with a drip pan full of hot water. Even though the ribs are protected in the foil, you want to ensure you’ve got a nice humid environment under the hood. Stabilise your temperature at a medium heat around 325F (163C). Put the ribs on a rack above your water pan, close the lid and let it rip for 2 hours.

Once your timer pings, carefully remove the packets from the grid, set them aside and now fire up the grill to get it as hot as it can. Carefully cut a corner off the packets and drip any of the juices that have remained into a pyrex measuring cup. Unwrap your ribs and get them onto the hot grid. Timing isn’t that critical here so you don’t have to rush. Put the ribs meat-side up and paint them with the sauce you made a few hours earlier. Make sure your sauce isn’t cold, right out of the fridge. I keep it handy at room temperature as I baste any meat. After about two minutes, carefully flip the slabs and paint the bottom side of the ribs. Keep flipping every two minutes or so to get a wonderful caramelisation across the ribs. Crisp them up carefully with the lid open and for the love of God, don’t walk away, the ribs can burn quite easily.

Remove the ribs when they’re nice and crispy and serve the slabs whole. Let your guests take as much or as little as they like. We served the ribs with an amazing ratatouille incorporating roasted red pepper, tomato, onion, garlic, Italian herbs, feta, parmesan and mozzarella cheese.

If you check out the photos, you’ll clearly see that the family LOVED these ribs. In fact, my darling bride Heather proclaimed quite categorically, these were the BEST ribs we’ve ever had. Naturally, I took a bow and immediately wanted to share this recipe with the world. Let us know how it goes!

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Overall Heather Rating: 10/10

An ode to the Big Green Asian Egg

 

There’s an egg you can boil…
There’s an egg you can poach…
There’s an egg you can scramble…
And spread on your toast.

You can fry one in a pan,
Make a fluffy omelet,
But I just have to sing the praises
of the very best egg yet.

It’s much bigger than an ostrich egg
In fact it’s a Cordon Bleu machine,
And can turn out steaks and ribs
The likes of which you’ve never seen.

Housed within it’s big green shell
It may look like staring into the jaws of hell
But there has to be an angel overseeing the job
For the grub this egg produces tastes like ambrosia to the gods

The aroma when it sets to work
Will set your taste buds poppin’,
In anticipation of a culinary delight
That is definitely heart stoppin’.

But even an angel can do with a hand
To create a delicious dream
And the hand overseeing it all
Is Roman, the chef supreme.

It’s a long process getting everything perfect
But he handles it all with good grace
For the love he has for this art, which comes from his heart
Can’t fail to put a smile on your face.

So enjoy every morsel, savour every bite
Of this feast he’s prepared for you.
As all of us here – give a great big cheer
For Roman and his Big Green Egg barbecue!

-Ann Brown March 2015

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My wonderful, adorable and hilariously funny mother-in-law is a bit of a poet. She penned this ode to the egg on her latest visit to Singapore in March. I think both Granny & Papa enjoyed the fruits of the egg and it was only fitting to pay homage with prose.  Thanks Maw… one of my favourite poems yet!

Low ‘n Slow Pork Chops

A quick post for a Monday night. As if weren’t enough that we ate our faces off over the weekend, I had 4 pork chops in the fridge that needed to be sorted out. What better way than to use a tried and tested method of “reverse searing” and come up with an amazing dish?

When you’re ready to prep, take your chops out of the fridge, give them a rinse under cold water and pat them dry. Drizzle a bit of vegetable oil on the chops and sprinkle a good helping of your favourite rub. Last night I used a pre-made rub (I know, I know…I just couldn’t be asked to make my own!) The rub I used was Cape Herb & Spice, Smoky BBQ Braai seasoning. Braai is the South African style of grilling and I suppose this spice was meant to reflect a typical Braai rub which included brown sugar, coriander, paprika, black pepper and something quite dodgy called “flavour.”  Give it a good coating and pop it back in the fridge until you’re ready to grill.

Set up your grill for indirect heat and stabilise at 225F (107C). When ready, place your chops on the grid and make sure you’ve got a good probe thermometer to track your progress. I had a few chops that were different in size and thickness so to be extra sure, I used my Thermapen which gives you lightning fast readings without you losing too much knuckle hair.

Flip your chops ever 15 minutes or so until they all reach about 125F (52C) then pull them off and tent them with some aluminium foil. Now the fun part….

Remove the plate setter or simply turn up the grill to maximum temperature. I removed the plate setter and inserted my trusty “Grill Grates” to get that extra special sear! When you hit “stupid hot” paint your pork with your favourite sauce and place the chops on the grid. 2 minutes later, give them a quick 45 degree spin for another two minutes. Now flip and do the same thing adding a bit more sauce. Grill for 2 minutes, 45 degree turn and then grill for another 2 minutes. Check your temperature with a probe thermometer as you’re finishing the sear. Note that you should remove your wired probe when you’re searing. The heat off the grid will render your probe absolutely “kaput!” This is where a thermapen comes in really handy.

Pull the chops off at 143F (62C) and let them rest for about 5 minutes under a lose tent of aluminium foil.

We served up these chops with some garlic fried rice and cheesy broccoli. Absolutely easy and absolutely tasty!

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Overall Heather Rating: 8/10 (her personal preference, not the recipe…so she says!)

That’s one monster chop