Almond Dust Pork Roast

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Here is my pre-Thanksgiving dinner.

A few days ago I bought a pork loin. They are cheap cuts of meat but can dry out quick and need a little help with flavor.

I had some jars and bags of flavored almonds around and thought that the salt and sugar and flavors in the bottom of the containers should be used for something.

Enter the pork loin! I butterflied it open (I am not very good at that but it is pretty easy) then I added a mix of the almond flavor "dust" and some Bad Byron's But Rub. It is great stuff I like to use on bbq.

After that I rolled it back up and used butchers twine to tie it up. I am also not too good at that but this video is how I learned to do it. Real chefs and butchers do it so fast it is hard to see how it is done but this explains it well.

Flavored and tied I put the pork loin in the fridge for a day. I simply roasted it fat side up in the oven at 350 for about an hour. When the internal temp got to 140 I took it out and let it rest for 10 minutes.

It smelled great. There was a roasted nutty almond/bbq/pork smell filling the kitchen.

It sliced well and I used a couple of interesting sauces on the side. The Fat Cat Papaya Pequin Passion was new to me. It has a really interesting mix of flavors but isn't HOT hot. The 1st 4 ingredients are papaya, onion, pineapple, apple cider. It has pequin pepper for a little heat. It has a very Caribbean kind of flavor. A great pairing with the almond-y pork.

The Soy Vay Toasted Sesame was exactly what you might think it would be. I really like it and again it worked well with the pork loin.

 I paired it with Steelhead Vineyards 2012 Red a North Coast California red wine blend.

The final result was really good! I eat a lot of almonds and I'll keep a container to save all the almond dust for projects like this.

BBQ Simple

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I think that's a good name for a cookbook. BBQ Simple. So many BBQ books seem like they are for reading not for using. I agree all the details are important and it can be interesting to read about all the aspects that go along with some good low and slow cooking.  But sometimes you just want to cook something to eat. You aren't in a competition, don't own a food truck, or catering service, or run a restaurant. Here's my favorite BBQ cookbook. I like all of Ray Lampe's books.

I recently made some really good pulled pork on my Big Green Egg and it was about as easy as could be. I saw some pre rubbed ready to cook Swift Premium Dry Rubbed Santa Maria Boneless Petite Pork Shoulder Roast and thought I'd give it a try.

As you can see by the label it is ready for a crock pot slow cooker but I was going to use it on my BBQ.

I didn't do anything to prep it. I got my BBQ going with some hardwood charcoal and some big apple wood chunks. I used the Big Green Egg plate setter for indirect heat. Any indirect setup would work on a BBQ like a Weber or even a gas grill. Check out The Snake Method. I put a pan of water and the grate on top of that and the pork with a temperature probe centered over all of that.

The BBQ temps ran about 275 to 300 and at first the pork shoulder was about 50 degrees. (I set it out from the fridge for an hour or so before I put it on.)

That was it. I didn't add any charcoal or wood or baste or mop or anything else. I just looked at the temperature on the BBQ to make sure it was running below 300 and above 250.

During the day the pork slowly came up to 100 then 150 then 175 and finally it hit 200 about 5 hours after I started. The BBQ temps were dropping as it ran out of fuel but with the lower vents open it stayed above 225 so that was OK. I let it go a little more to get it to 205 and took it off. It cooked down to a perfect size for dinner for 2.

There was a small cap of BBQ "bark" on top that was a little dry so I threw that away. The rest of it was moist and full of flavor. It was a little salty but the Heinz Kansas City Sweet and Smoky BBQ Sauce balanced it out.

I am a fan of these sauces. They are regional style BBQ sauces with Kansas City, Texas, Carolina, and more. Check them out here.

It was a Paleo friendly dinner with pulled pork and spaghetti squash dressed with a little bit of California olive oil.

You can do this. BBQ Simple.