Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The brine

By singular demand, I bring you a not much adapted recipe from Bon Appetit for brining pork chops--the key? Beer!
And not only brine, but a rub. Delicious.

1 beer.
Edited thanks to Lis less than 1/4 cup salt (Bon Appetit uses 1/4 cup salt--I think it's too much but if you love salt even more than I do--which is a lot, then use the whole 1/4 cup).
3 Tbls Molasses (I use honey. See? Adapt.)
3 Tbls Brown Sugar
4 ice cubes.

In a pan, heat beer, salt, honey, and sugar until sugar dissolves. Let cool. Add ice cubes.

In a plastic tub or freezer bag, place pork chops and brine. Turn twice during the 4 hour hour brine. Don't brine for more than 4 hours or chops become too salty.

The rub
5 cloves of garlic (BA says 7. Less is more, no?)
2 tbls dried sage (though I used fresh and it was just fine.)
2 teaspoons salt
3 tbls pepper.

Crush all this together--I use my cutting board and a knife but you grind ingredients in mortar and pestle too.

Take the chops out of the brine. Dry them. Let them dry. Do something drying so the rub can stick.

Heat grill (you could do this a little earlier. )

Grill chops as you would usually. The thin ones about 5 minutes a side. Thick, about 8.

Voila!

4 comments:

lis said...

yum, beer brine. but isn't 1/3 cup of salt more than a 1/4 cup?

I will buy pork chops and try this.

Nik said...

Yup. You're right. (But three is less than 4 says my addled, fraction-leery brain) I
changed it. Thank you!

Lisa B. said...

Well doesn't that sound delicious, a new piece of data to mull over in my almost daily dilemma about whether (mostly) vegetarians can (occasionally?) or should eat pork.

Ali said...

Oh, for me? Hooray!!! I can't wait to try in the large clean expanse of my mother's kitchen.

:)
Ali

P.S. Have you ever written about pork?