I happen to work with some lovely gals and, after hearing about my Big Green Eggscapades for months, they had all hinted around it might be time for me to cook something for them. We were also overdue for hang out time so I proposed our first ever agency Grillin and Chillin Day at my house. With everyone on board, I had to decide what to serve up. The only request from the group (or maybe it was just Shelley) was that whatever I cooked should be wrapped in bacon.
Now, you might think that I considered some dainty little lady food since we are all women. (Although I am not sure what counts as dainty BBQ.) But I knew I needed something substantial to offset our (always generous) wine consumption. Since this is the season of excess and Turduckens here in the States, I figured why not go for broke? And so was born the Pork x 4 Stuffed Pork Loin — stuffed with ham and sausage and wrapped in bacon. It uses everything except the snout, y’all.
Pork x 4 Stuffed Pork Loin (Serves 10)
Ingredients
- 4 lb pork loin
- 1 lb bacon (I used jalapeno bacon)
- 1 lb pork sausage (I used spicy parmesan)
- 1/2 lb thin sliced deli ham (I used Boar’s Head)
- salt & pepper
Directions
The night before, rub the pork loin with a generous amount of kosher salt, cover in plastic wrap, and store back in the fridge. You’ll want to put it in a shallow dish in case of leakage. You can also cook up your sausage, let it cool, crumble into small pieces, and store in the fridge, as well. Don’t have time to do any of this the night before? No problem — just do it as much in advance as possible.
When you are ready to get cooking, set up your Egg (or smoker) for indirect heat and level out at about 400 degrees. (Or you can heat your oven to 375 degrees.)
Remove the pork loin from the fridge and rinse off any remaining salt. Your most important task will be to carefully filet the pork loin and then pound it out flat. I covered this in a previous post but here is also a good video to help you out:
It should look something like this…
Pound it flat with a handy dandy mallet, sprinkle with salt & pepper, and lay down that lovely sliced ham.
Then sprinkle with crumbled sausage.
Now oh-so-carefully roll it up, pushing any stray fillings back inside, until you have this…
Now for the fun part: Lay down some parchment paper and weave a bacon blanket big enough to cover your roll o’ pork.
Place your pork on top and, using the parchment to support, roll it over until it is covered.
On a separate area, go ahead and cut out butcher’s twine and lay it down like so.
Carefully lift the pork roll and place on your butcher twine; truss that sucker up good.
Place on your Egg, over a drip pan. This is where my step-by-step pictures start to lapse. And my cooking went a bit awry. You see, everyone arrived…
And, while I should have set my meat thermometer to alert me when the desired internal temperature of 145 degrees F was achieved, I did not. I blame this:
We were celebrating some good news — did I mention that? By the time I checked on my pork roast, the bacon was super crispy and the internal temp had soared past where it should have been.
You will want to cook for about an hour and a half, turning halfway through and checking frequently for doneness. Once you get an internal temp of 145 degrees F, remove and tent with foil. The pork will continue to cook as it rests for 15-20 minutes. Slice it up.
Since I was concerned mine might be a little dry due to the overcooking, I whipped up a sauce of apricot preserves and cherry balsamic vinegar and drizzled it on top.
If my version was this tasty, your (carefully monitored and perfectly cooked) version will bring down the house.
Zen of BBQ 