Hey guys. Whole boneless pork loin
probably doesn't show up in your grocery list that often. But, I'm here to tell you
why it should in this episode sponsored by 'The Pork Board' I'll be showing you
how to break down, prep, store and make delicious meals out of these humongous
hunks of hog let's get down to basics. Alright guys, the first thing we got to
do is negotiate this full-size boneless pork loin that I acquired from Sam's
Club. We want to look for a roast that has a good healthy fat cap on top and
once we've gotten it out of the packaging and patted it dry we can start
breaking it down into our desired pieces. Now I'm gonna go for a center cut loin
roast and a couple different kinds of pork chops so I'm going to cut out you
guessed it, the center. This is where the fat cap is going to be the largest and
give us the most even coverage so we're cutting that guy out now let's give
these guys a flip so you can see how the meat changes as we go down the length of
the loin. As you can see over here on the blade side we've got a lot of darker,
fattier meat whereas over on the sirloin side we have much less. This probably the
more challenging part of the fork to cook so we're gonna cut it into ultra
thick pork chops that we're gonna sous-vide. Over on the blade side these
guys are better suited for traditional cooking methods like pan frying and
grilling as you can see the chop on the right has a lot more fat connective
tissue they're gonna help us stand up to the heat whereas the other end of the
loin is much leaner. But, for the meantime we're going to deal with the center cut
pork roast that we are going to butterfly. Basically we're placing a
large cut down the bottom third of the roast opening it up like a book, until we
reach the other end the roast at which point we're going to make another cut
opening up the roast yet again, more like a pamphlet or a travel brochure. By doing
so we've essentially tripled the surface area of this roast and tripled our
potential to make it delicious. First we need to cover it with plastic wrap and
pound it out flat we want this nice and even. If you can't seem to find your meat
mallet a heavy bottomed frying pan will sometimes do the trick. We're not trying
to tenderize it or anything we're just trying to even it out so it will more
effectively turn into a pork roll as we utilize a method from America's Test
Kitchen one that starts by making an ultra flavorful paste out of a few
tablespoons of freshly chopped rosemary, and about eight cloves of minced garlic.
Both of which we're going to place into a cold stainless steel frying pan. We're
starting this off in a cold pan so more gently cooks the garlic and we're left
with a more sort of sweet and savory mixture than anything acrid or bitter.
To this we are adding one third of one cup of high-quality olive oil, which is
fine because we're gonna be cooking this at a lower temperature than usual, and
the zest of one lemon careful nuts to grate down to the white
pith. Once we got all that junk in there let's crank on the heat on medium low
and slowly over the course of about three minutes bring this guy up to a
gentle simmer at which point we're gonna let it cook for two minutes,
allow ourselves to be dazzled by the smells that have filled our apartment,
and then strain through a fine mesh sieve into a heatproof container reserving the oil
which we are going to use later. For now though, we're focusing on that garlic
herb paste we want to press it into the sieve to make sure to extract all of
that flavorful oil, and then allow it to cool entirely while we pensively process
some pancetta. I say pensively not only for the sake of alliteration, but also
because we're just pulsing it a few times before adding our herb mixture that
we're then going to process into a smooth paste. About 60 seconds we want it so smooth that we can spread it because, well, guess what we're gonna do. Once
we've got that mixture all set and ready to go it's time to bust out our waiting
pork roast which we are going to lightly seasoned all over with salt and freshly
ground pepper. Butterflying this roast has blessed us with the ability to
season it throughout making sure that no bite of pork is bland or boring. Then
we're gonna flip it back over fat cap side down and begin a smearing. We want
to spread this mixture out as evenly as possible while leaving about a two inch
gap on one side of the roast. The side to which we are going to roll towards. This
is gonna leave us a nice gap at the bottom of the roast so our beautiful
flavor paste it doesn't leak out on us once we've got our roll rolled up into a
nice, roll, place it gaap side down and then it's time to tie it up tight. Place
a length of butchers twine about every inch or so underneath the roast, tie up
top, using a- I can't remember what it's called it's been a long time since I was
in Boy Scouts- knot. Basically it's a square knot with an extra turn on the
first twist... I don't know dude... just tie it up it's not gonna explode. Especially
because we're gonna be cooking this guy's slow and low. 275 degrees
Fahrenheit for about two hours or until the reads 135 degrees Fahrenheit in the
thickest part of the roast. In the meantime you can see that I'm simply
seasoning all my chops with salt and pepper, both sides of course, because
whether we are sous vide these or not we're vacuum sealing them all for
storage in the freezer but the chops that we are going to sous-vide we're
gonna drop a single clove of garlic in there, a sprig of thyme on one side of
both of the growths and a sprig of rosemary on the other, we're treating
these guys the way we might treat filet mignon because there
very very lean and they're going to require gentle cooking so as to remain
flavorful and moist. We're dropping this guy into a 144 degrees Fahrenheit bath
for precisely 60 minutes- 90 minutes if you're doing this fresh out of the
freezer. Once one hour has elapsed and we have removed our pork from the bags and
patted them, dry we're going to place them into a smoking hot skillet hot as
you can get it because we're just doing this for a little bit of color and
texture on the outside of our chops. They're cooked to a perfect 144 degrees
Fahrenheit on the inside and we don't want that raising a single degree. So try
to cook them as quickly as possible, sous-vide meat also has a kind of gray
nasty palate appearance so try to make sure that no facet of your chops go
untouched by the heat. Once those have been sufficiently seared we're going to
remove them from the heat, place them on a plate, cover them with foil, and make
one of my favorite things in the world a simple pan sauce. We got that nice fond on the bottom of the pot that we're going to deglaze with a good glug of chicken
stock, as well as a smaller glug of dry sherry and for flavor extra credit we're
also going to throw in a couple sprigs of fresh thyme, scraped up all that good
stuff off the bottom of the pot and we're also gonna add a little squeeze of
lemon, because between the chicken stock and the sherry and the eventual butter
that we're gonna add to this sauce this is turning into a very rich affair and
we need a little acidity to cut through it all. Once the liquid has reduced by
about 1/2, we're going to remove the thyme sprigs, kill the heat and add about
two tablespoons worth of butter. Whisk constantly make sure that your pan isn't
too hot or the sauce could break. Once you've got everything nice and
incorporated it's time to plate up. Over at the plate station we've got our pork
chops which as you can see have been cooked to a blush-pink perfection.
Remember the old saying 145 your pork will thrive! Dry and white, ya ain't doing it
right. We all grew up hearing those sayings every day for a reason because
they're true. Properly cooked pork chops are a revelation and they can be
achieved easily and economically by buying whole pork loins and breaking
them down into your desired bits. Speaking of which what about our Tuscan
style pork roast? How's that doin'? Well it just hit 135, 136 if you want to be
a (bleep) about it, so we are removing it from the oven and preparing to sear, because
well it picked up some semi-decent color from roasting, we want to see some deep
browning especially on that fat cap. So into a ripping hot skillet it goes
along with that lemon that we zested cut in half- watch out for hot oil..OW!- I'll place those cut side down until they're nice and brown and once the pork has formed a crust on its first side and pulls away freely, go ahead and give it a flip take
the lemons off when they're nice and brown, and continue browning the pork all
over until it is beautiful and well, brown. Give it a nice shake to get some
of them restaurant style flames up in your pan and then we're going to make a
simple vinaigrette out of the pan-seared lemons and the reserved oil that we
cooked the rosemary and garlic in. And we're also gonna add just a little handful of
freshly chopped parsley for some color and brightness, add that in there and
then whisk the whole affair together with a fork until emulsified. Sorry I
didn't use tiny whisk he is in the dishwasher. Season with salt and freshly
ground pepper and then once our roast has been thoroughly seared on all sides
it's time to carve and serve. First we got to snip off our butchers twine that
we tied with what I'm gonna call the half double square knot and then it's
time to cut it into this baby and see if we got a good swirl.... moment of truth and
mission accomplished! Crispy, fat, tendered, juicy pork. Super
flavorful filling, and a bright herbaceous vinaigrette. This has got to
be one of the pinnacles of pork that's right I think this thing can go
toe-to-toe with bacon any day of the week. Mainly because it is stuffed with
pancetta which is a type of bacon. I really hope you guys try this one for
yourselves but I also hope that you try buying and breaking down your own
primals. It's a good learning experience, it's economical, and as you can see it
often can yield delicious results. Just want to say thank you again to the pork
board for sponsoring this episode I will see you guys next week when we'll be
taking a look at quick weeknight meals.
From the looks of it, /u/OliverBabish, you're tying the roast at 3:55 with a surgeon's knot! It's a good choice for keeping tension on flesh.
For those without sous vide devices, here's a workaround, and the ATK recipe source(paywall) of the pork roast.
pork board has been advertising pretty heavily recently (at least to me)--wonder what sparked the new ad campaign
I'm glad to see that Andrew has gotten better with the sponsorship in his videos...recently the "sponsored" videos are not pushy at all, they seem to be letting him do his thing. And it works because now I want to go buy a whole pork loin.
Aww I missed tiny whisk
NGL getting a little frustrated with all the sous vide stuff in basics lately. Feels a lot less basic.
Uhg. Mark that NSFW, man. It's 8 AM and I have a food boner here.
Nice. I have one of these sitting in my freezer since they were on sale at Costco. $11 for a whole meat log!
Tune in here to see Babish beat his meat!
Babish this was an amazing episode man, really great job