BBQ105/17: Tomaporks!
I was placing an order with Turner & George last week for a few bits. They have a new website with loads of cool new cuts of meat on there, one of which was Tomaporks! I had to buy some to cook! £12 for 2, what a bargain!
The last pork chops I had from Turner & George were my favourite ever pork chops, the recipe by Steven Raichlen was amazing:
This was a slightly different cut but I knew I wanted to brine the pork chops before cooking them again. I didn’t have time to smoke then grill them so decided to just grill them.
The Prep:
I found a recipe online by Saber Grills for brining pork chops so decided to follow that.
In a saucepan I combined Water, Salt, Sugar, Maple Syrup, Garlic and Ginger then brought it to the boil before removing the heat and leaving the pan to cool.
Once the brine was cool I took the pork chops out of the packaging and placed them into a tray.
I then poured the brine over the top. There wasn’t quite enough to cover the top so I planned to flip the meat half way through. It was tricky carrying the tray to the fridge and I spilt a bit!
The plan was to leave them brining for 4 hours so flipped them after 2 hours. After 4 hours I took them out and patted them dry with kitchen towel. The pork did feel softer to the touch. You will see in the closest chop below a slight dent in the loin area, that is my thumb print when I picked it up!
The Cook:
I didn’t add any more salt due to the amount of salt in the brine.
I lit a full chimney of Oxford Charcoal Apple lump and once it was fully lit I poured it into the centre of the grill. I then placed a chunk of apple smoking wood from Smokewood shack on the charcoal, placed the grill on top then placed the pork chops over direct heat and put the lid on.
It got pretty smoky quite quickly but I kept flipping the meat over and if it was getting too wild I moved the chops out to cook indirectly over the cooler part of the grill.
The T&G website says 5 minutes per side but it took about 10 minutes per side to get the internal temperature up to 60C. The FSA advise you cook pork to 75C as Trichinosis is killed at 59C and various other bugs should be killed by the time you hit 75C but in my mind if you are cooking a quality bit of meat where you know the origins of it then I am happy to take it off at 60C. If you buy your meat from a supermarket or if it’s imported meat I would take it higher but it will probably dry the meat out, especially pork. Better to buy some quality, outdoor reared UK meat and cook it lower.
Once we got to 60C the outside colour of the meat was looking fantastic. I had seared the rind edge off as we both enjoy a bit of seared pork fat!
Time to Eat:
I left it to rest for about 5 minutes then sliced it off the bone. Mainly because we were sharing 2 chops between the 4 of us but also as I needed to cut bits up for the kids!
Nice colour inside, just a hint of pink and very juicy. The outside was a nice dark colour with juice on the outside too.
Summary:
This was a great bit of pork, fantastic quality meat which was very juicy but also really tasty. The brine worked well and helped to sear the outside and fat/rind. You could pick up hints of caramelised maple syrup and sugar as you ate the meat. The meal was well received by my family. The kids inhaled all the meat and were asking for more. As you will see below it was popular!
Changes for next time? I would probably try and reverse sear it and cook it very slowly indirectly then sear it off over direct heat, maybe even directly on the coals.
| Cook Equipment: | Weber Kettle |
| Cook Method: | Direct and Indirect grilling |
| Charcoal: | Oxford Charcoal Apple |
| Smoking Wood: | Smokewood Shack Apple Chunk |
| Cook temperature: | 250C |
| Cook time: | 20m |
| Internal temperature: | 60C |
| Notes: | 1: Reverse sear / dirty? |