the pragmatic chef™

BIGGLES' Survival STUFFED PORK ROAST

I've been hanging out at the Pragmatic Chef site for a few weeks and noticed his contest coming up. This paired with the fact I've been wanting to stuff a pork loin seemed like a marriage made in heaven. The 4th of July weekend was coming up and it was time. Off to Rick's Meats I flew, I had a smoke porky vision. Arriving at the meat case revealed a really nice lean roast, too lean. I was going to go ahead and try, maybe wrap it with bacon. But it wasn't what I wanted, no sir. I wanted something I could smoke for hours and have it remain happy. I asked Rick about it and he came up with a Blade End roast, thank you Rick!

The way I figured it, you could get two slices here, one near each bone.

Before we go too much further, let's get some of the Rules out of the way. This recipe isn't too tough, maybe a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to 5. Unless you're going to use a real fire, then I rate this a 5.

Ingredients:

3 Pound Pork Roast - Fatty cut for longer cook times
1/2 bunch of Chard - pulled & sliced small - I used Red Chard
1/3 cup Pine Nuts - toasted / sliced
Enough Survival Spice to coat
Cotton String - 2 pieces 24" long
A Sharp Knife

This was my vision, no IS my vision.

Do this, lay out & rub down your Survivial Spice™ over all.
Lay down a bed of your finely chopped chard on the left hand side's flat surface.
Lay down your toaster oven or pan toasted Pine Nuts.
Pull the Meat Spire to the left and push down. This will give you a flat suface on the other side of the Meat Spire to do another layering of the Chard & Pine Nuts.
Pull right side meat flap in and squeeze in together. It should lay steady as you get it trussed up.
Step #6? Step back and admire your work. You deserve a break.

Make sure your meat has been out of the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or so before you put it in to the oven or smoker or grill. A relaxed roast is more likely to absorb flavors from the rubs and stuffins', it's a happy roast.

This roast made it in to the oven at 350 degrees for a little over 2 hours on the bottom rack.

If I were to do this again, I would cook it longer. An internal temperature of 152 to 155 isn't enough time to let the flavors of your stuffing meld. I could have gone another 45 minutes easy, maybe an hour. Both my wife and I agreed upon this. And the fact it needed salt. All things considered it was still a darned fine roasted hunk of pork and will be varying this over the near future.

A note about the Survival Spice™ (no TM this time because it was TM'd already once in my writing), this was my first encounter with the concoction. At first whiff I was really surprised how different it was, spicy yet had some sweet going on. Nice pepper action then some other goodies dancing around. I've got 8 jars of Peney's spices and they're fine, but typical. Survival Spice is not typical and I found out it is NOT overpowing. It'll make the start out on fish & vegetables and easily make the transition to heartier ingredients such as pork roasts.

A note regarding short cuts or ways to make things easier? Knock it off, that was too easy.

fini