People fear the pork chop because they are easy to overcook turning into a grilled hockey puck. Learn how to grill the perfect pork chop from Chef William Eick. Most known for creating meticulous Umami style dishes at his weekly pop up Matsu and throughout the week at Mission Ave. Bar and Grill, “Willy” is so obsessive about the dishes he creates he has even created his own “Milk Bread” buns to ensure the final taste of his sandwiches which are now sought after by other world-class chefs.
Willy shows you how to cook up the perfect mouth-watering pork chop and pork wings from Stay Classy Meats. Stay Classy Meats provides high-quality small-batch meats direct to your door.
HIGH-QUALITY PORK USED:
PORK BERKSHIRE BONE-IN CHOPS - 12OZ (CLICK HERE)
Berkshire is a heritage breed pork synonymous with inner-muscular fat. It is known in Japan as Kurobuta. Just like the Wagyu is for Beef, the Berkshire is for pork. Highly prized for it's flavor profile, these pork chops eat like how pork should eat. It has fantastic marbling and a significant layer of back fat. The best part comes at the end — when no one is looking, of course, pick up that bone and gnaw on it to get some extra porky flavor. The only downfall is that once you have tried Berkshire, you do not want to go back to anything else.
This is our favorite cut of pork mainly due to the ease of preparation, cooking and flavor profile. Pork chops are likely the least intimidating of all pork cuts because they are so easy to prepare.
You can use your grandmother's Pork Chop and Applesauce recipe or you can take out that cast iron and pan sear, both are equally amazing, especially from a heritage breed varietal.
PORK WINGS (CLICK HERE)
Pork Wings is a single bone (fibula) surrounded by tender meat. These 'meat popsicles' are super tender and are an instant party favorite.
Cook these slow in indirect heat (30min at about 250F) with a nice dry rub and then flash some heat to them to finish. Don't forget to add your favorite sauce.
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Transcription:
I'm Chef William with Mission Avenue Bar and Grill [in Oceanside, CA]. We're here at the Dirt Co Ranch and we're going to cook some Berkshire pork from Stay Classy Meats today. We got some pork chops and pork wings. Going to show you how to grill them to bring out the most flavor.
A really cool thing about this Berkshire stuff is the fat content on it. Especially with these, you can see the marbling in it, it's really, really nice. Its a quality product too, you don't really have to do too much. You don't really want to hide any of that natural flavor. Once we get these on the grill, we're just going to give them a light bit of seasoning. I like sea salt. Kosher also works really good. Do both sides, season from high up so you get even distribution. We're going to let them rest and let that salt do a quick brine on it. Sometimes with some meats, especially when they're nice and evenly marbled like this, seasoning it a few hours ahead allows the salt to penetrate throughout the meat, so you have a more even seasoning. You can see it actually pull some of the moisture out on both sides and then they'll actually put it back in [with cooking]. You get a better texture, more flavor to it that way.
I'm going to keep the coals on one side instead of putting them throughout so I can have different areas of temperature.
Here’s a nice bread. This is a Japanese milk bread (bun), a brioche would be very similar, just as nice. Will toast these on the grill once the meat is resting. Take some of these little onions - set these on the cold side. Now you see the salt actually started to melt and become part of the meat. That's kind of what we're looking for.
We're going to start on the hot side. Right now, we're going over the coals just to kind of mark it, and then we're going to move them away from the coals and let them cook a little bit more slowly - so then we have an even cook, all the way through, a lot easier and it actually helps render the fat out a little bit more without overcooking the meat. Turn it 90 degrees, just trying of get some nice grill marks on it.
The onions over here, give them a little touch, they're still pretty raw. But that light temperature that's over here, it's going to help cook it evenly and slowly pull the juices out of the onion, kind of caramelized inside that skin. Once they're actually cooked, we can pull that skin off and have this beautiful, almost compressed onion flavor without having to be too fancy about it and bring out special tools.
We have some nice caramelization on the meat there, a little bit of char. Just going to do the same thing on the other side. Just looking for the hot spots. We want to put a nice crust on the outside, that way it seals all the juices for the inside. The less you turn the meat over, the more it will help keep the meat juicy.
Pork these days in the US is so well taken care of, even grocery store stuff, you can cook it medium rare. That way you don't lose a lot of the moisture that's in pork. A lot of people are scared to cook for it because it can get really dry and tough. But these days pork is so well taken care of, you can actually cook it a lot less.
At this point, just going to check it. Started to caramelize the outside of the meat, going to move them away. Just a basic marinade, we call it Tari - ours is just a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, some sesame oil, just really basic - just help flavor the meat. Put the lid back on. And they'll slowly finish on the other side.
We've got these really nice Shishitos [peppers] from Girl and Dug Farm out of San Marcos, CA. Going to throw those on the grill, char them up, and then slice them. Going to use a little bit of oil to help blister the skin. Tiny bit of salt. What we're looking for with the peppers is just to get some char on the outside so they're not too overcooked, just a little bit of blistering – you can see right there, these peppers cook real fast - 10, 15 seconds each side should be fine.
Bring your bread to get a nice toast.
Going to pull this pork off now. You always want to let your meat rest. Almost the most important thing about grilling any meat, cooking any meat, is the resting period. Generally, you would rest it for about as long as you've cooked it. We cook these for about six, seven minutes so we're going to let them rest six to 10 minutes. That way the moisture goes back in, it finishes cooking throughout and you have a better texture. If we cut into it right now, a lot of the juices are just going to come out of the meat - and we don't want that to happen. We want to keep all of that juice and flavor inside the meat, especially with pork, because you're going to lose a lot.
So while we're waiting for those to rest, we're just going to chop up our peppers, start to build our sandwiches, and the meat will be the last thing that we slice. Pork and fruit always go really well. Right now, it’s stone fruit season. We've got these really nice plums - use that to sweeten up pork.
Let's check our onions - should be about there. Once we can push into it and stays, the skin will come right off. They’re perfect right now. [Tosses onion skin to coals]. In case you're wondering, these are really warm. Little bit hot on my hand, so I would suggest letting them cool down first. Just going to slice them down - be careful once they're cut, they actually will get a little bit slippery with all the juices.
I like to put on my sandwich toppings on the bottom. So as the juices come out of the meat or whatever is being put in the sandwich will actually season any of the toppings while you eat the sandwich.
We want to find the grain - just going to slice this way. That's nice and juicy. So you see there's even a little bit of pink on this darker side of the meat, and that's totally fine. That's kind of what you want, especially with such a nice pork product. Take that money shot.
Next, we're going to do the pork wings. So there's a little pork wings like little shank that the little bone out here, all the meat surrounding it, it's like a little mini chop, basically just a little bit of salt. These pork wings with the connective tissue that's around it come in here on the outside and kind of goes throughout. Starting at a lower temperature is actually better. You want it to help break down without overcooking the meat. So we're going to take these over to start on the cooler side. We're just going to let those go for 10, 15 minutes. So at this point, they haven't really cooked yet but are set to take care of all that connective tissue. We can actually move them over to the heat side and let them start to finish up over here. Put the lid back on. We're going to put the glaze on this side before we flip, so we can use it to caramelize. The lower temperature is going to help break down all that tendon inside, so it's not so chewy and tough. Give these about five more minutes and we’ll be good to go. That's a nice color on them. A little bit of glaze. We have little fruits called cumquats, where the skin is actually more what you want to eat. We're just going to squeeze them. Get their juices on there. Tear up the skins, the inside fruit is more bitter than the peels, but you can eat the whole thing. We should let it rest, but let's just cut one open…to give it a look. Really nice, juicy meat, has a nice smoke ring going on. Pork Wings - one of the most underrated parts of pork.
Thanks for hanging out with us at the ranch. Special thanks to Dirt Co and Stay Classy Meats – I’m Chef William Eick from Mission Avenue Bar and Grill [Oceanside, CA]. We'll see you guys next time.
