Grilled Pork Tenderloin al Pastor with Avocado Crema

While working on a hobby project in the basement earlier today (a different post for my main blog), I was watching the Food Network (The Kitchen), and saw a recipe that made me say "that's dinner for tonight."

The recipe was Grilled Pork Tenderloin al Pastor with an avocado crema. Yum. Thanks to Jeff Mauro.

This is a simple recipe (the best kind), with a minimum of ingredients and not a ton of prep work.

The pork tenderloins were marinaded for 2-3 hours in a blender-ed combination of pineapple juice, chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, garlic, salt and achiote paste. As a short cut to the true achiote paste, I used two packets of Goya brand achiote seasoning powder (and the result was terrific).

The avocado crema was blender-ed combination of 1.5 avocados, part of a bunch of cilantro, a half cup or so of sour cream, some salt and pepper, a lime's zest and juice, plus a little water and olive oil to thin it down.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin al Pastor with Avocado Crema

The result was fabulous. I cooked the tenderloins (3 of them) on a 350-ish degree grill for 10 minutes on each side. They rested for ten minutes while we steamed some broccoli.

We served it, as is often the case in our semi-Asian family, with white rice (and a glass of Chardonnay...).

Highly recommended. Complex rich flavors with minimal prep and not too many ingredients. If you can't find achiote powder or paste, you could use salt, pepper and garlic powder and you'd be OK...

Try this, you won't regret it.

Ribs (again)

Nothing says "I have 5 hours this afternoon on a vacation day at the end of a holiday weekend with nothing particular to do" like 3 full racks of baby back ribs.

I have written about my rib rub recipe before (May 2013), so nothing here was extraordinarily new other than the store bought sauce used to finish off this batch of ribs. Normally I use Sweet Baby Ray's (original recipe), which has a nice sweetness to offset the spiciness of the dry rub. Wandering the market today I noticed a series of Guy Fieri branded sauces, and since Grace is a fan of Diners Drive Ins and Dives, I picked up a bottle of his "Kansas City - smoky and sweet" version. Getting this home and comparing it side by side to SBR's, it was extremely similar in texture and taste. Which meant it was good.

Ribs - final 10 minutes sauced with bone side down

The ribs themselves were cooked in the oven, tented with foil, for 3 hours and 45 minutes at 250 degrees [F] (a long slow cook with dry rub only) and then finished on a medium heat grill for 10-15 minutes with a liberal basting of the sauce (5 minutes meat down then 10 minutes bone down). Despite what others (the purists) might say, you can make a wonderful rack of barbecued ribs entirely in the oven as long as you take your time. The last few minutes on the grill with the sauce serves to caramelize the sugars in the sauce (and make nice grill marks) but isn't absolutely necessary. [I know, I know, nothing replaces a real slow cooked rib from a smoker or a grill with wood chips...I agree...but...this works well too]

Baby Back Ribs

As I said earlier today, tonight was going to be baby back rib night. And so it was.

My rib recipe is very simple. Take baby back ribs at room temperature and sprinkle them liberally, top and bottom, with the barbecue rub recipe posted earlier today. Bake them slowly in a 250 degree oven for about two and a half hours.

On the grill...

Near the end of the oven baking time, preheat the grill 400 degrees. When done in the oven, slather the ribs top and bottom with a sweet barbecue sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray's original recipe). The sweetness of the barbecue sauce is the perfect complement to the spiciness and mild heat of the dry rub. Start the ribs meaty side down for about 5 minutes, then flip to the bone side down for another 5 to 7 minutes, re-slathering the meaty side as necessary. The ribs are fully cooked at this point, and the only thing you are looking to do by putting the ribs on the grill with the barbecue sauce is to caramelize the sauce a little bit over a medium high heat. At the end of about 10-12 minutes total cooking time on a pretty hot grill, remove the ribs to a platter and let them rest for another 5 or 10 minutes. I like to slice them down and serve them on a platter as individual ribs (as shown below).

The finished product

Preferred accompaniments are corn on the cob and homemade spicy slaw. My favorite recipe for cole slaw is from Emeril Lagasse's first book, which I will write about soon. Tonight we slummed it a bit and went with store bought, but with good ribs I am not sure anybody noticed...