As I’ve mentioned before, the standard meals I ate as a child left me with instinctual aversions to them as an adult. Mostly because my mother was a notorious mediocre cook with no flair for flavor.
One of the dishes she used to serve fairly regularly was pork chops. Her version – plain ol’ pork chops baked in the oven with no seasoning. Not exactly something on which you look back fondly.
Of course, the more I got into barbecue, the more I wanted to take a second look at those childhood dinners. One of my favorite things to cook nowadays is smoked meatloaf, so why not give pork chops another try now that I’m such an accomplished pitmaster?
I did a quick YouTube search for smoked pork chop recipes, and found this video from my ol’ reliable source, HowToBBQRight. Looked damn good, so I just followed this almost exactly.
First, I mixed together the brine:
- 64 oz Apple Juice
- 1 cup Light Brown Sugar
- ½ cup Kosher Salt
- ½ cup Killer Hogs BBQ Rub
I put bone-in pork chops into Ziploc bags with the brine and let them sit in the refrigerator for two hours. After that, I removed them from the brine and drain any excess liquid. I let the bone-in pork chops sit out for 10-15 minutes on the counter before seasoning.
While they were sitting, I got the smoker ready: 250 degrees with cherry wood for flavor.
I seasoned pork chops with a base coat of Killer Hogs The BBQ Rub (you can find this rub at http://howtobbqright.com/bbqshop/ ). On top of that, I sprinkled on a little Montreal Steak Seasoning.
As they were smoking and nearing the internal temperature I wanted, I heated up my new Char-Griller 980 Gravity-Fed grill. I got this puppy for my birthday, and put it to good use on this day.
Once the chops reached about 135 degrees, I took them off the smoker and grilled them on my 980 for about four minutes on each side, turning them 45 degrees after two minutes. I knew that in addition to the smokiness, I wanted some char on them.
When they were looking pretty and the internal temperature reached 145 degrees, off they came.
Such a huge difference between these and what I experienced growing up. These were flavorful, rustic, and juicy. It was a fantastic way to wind down the summer and give plain ol’ pork chops a kick.
The Wine: 2020 Weingut Donnhoff Tonschiefer Riesling
When it comes to pork, I naturally think of pairing it with something light, fruity, and acidic to bring out the best in the meat. I had recently bought this bottle from Collier’s of Centreville and thought this was a perfect opportunity to open it.
On the nose and the tongue it was a classic Riesling – pear, apple, citrus, and a little minerality. This one was dry, so there wasn’t that sweetness you might get in other Rieslings to overpower the sweetness already present in the meat.
This was a fantastic summer meal. A lighter meat (albeit with some heavier rustic flavors) and a refreshing wine to pair with it. It’s got to be a regular staple on my spring and summer menu from now on.
Now a little about this here wine…
It comes from Nahe, which is one of the smaller German wine regions, named after the Nahe river which joins the Rhein at Bingen. The terrain boasts a dramatic topography with steep slopes and craggy outcrops of metamorphic rock. Like most of the regions on or near the Rhine River, it is known for its production of Riesling.
A little more about the region from Wine-Searcher.com:
Like the Mosel there are many steep vineyard sites here, and while they can produce great quality, the effort required to farm them has led to many being abandoned. The subregion of Alsenztal, once covered in vineyards, has now almost ceased to exist.
From the beginning the region has had a rather chequered history: the Romans neglected to cultivate the region’s volcanic soils until at least 500 years after the Mosel had been planted, yet by the 19th Century it was regarded as one of the nation’s foremost viticultural areas. But economic hardship in the early to mid 20th Century saw Nahe slip to relative obscurity until the Riesling renaissance of the 1990s.
Now, what about the wine producer, you might ask! Let’s find out:
The Dönnhoff family has been making wine in this region since the 1750s.
Weingut Dönnhoff is an estate in the Nahe region of the Rhineland. It is often regarded as one of Germany’s very best producers, famous for the high-quality of its wines which are made predominantly from Riesling.
The estate is located at Oberhausen in the Riesling heartland of Nahe. There are around 20 hectares (50 acres) of vineyard, with a healthy proportion of Erste Lage sites. Some 80 percent of production is of the Riesling grape, which is planted on rocky, volcanic soils, giving the wines balanced acidity and intense minerality.
There’s nothing like rediscovering the foods you thought you didn’t like as a kid. Most of the time, you do like them, you just needed that new experience. Case in point – these chops. Of course, a great wine doesn’t hurt.
I’ve been behind on my posts, so I completely forget what I have coming up next. But whatever it is, you’ll be better for having read it!
Cheers!