Fire up the grill!

Hey everyone! I hope your summer is going well…we just returned from the Low Country & Hilton Head Island and it was so stunningly beautiful that we wanted to stay home and grill most evenings, hence my blog entry this week. The one exception being the day we spent at the Inn at Palmetto Bluff where we indulged in the spa and had lunch at the restaurant where one of my favorite Food Network celebrity Chefs’ Tyler Florence frequently hosts shows and cooks. My reading choice whilst my toes nudged the sand was a cookbook by Pat Conroy called “Recipes of my Life”. Thanks to his incredible word pictures of sight, touch and taste from his childhood in South Carolina and my own sensory experiences my soul was able to drink deeply. The salt marshes, oak lined trees and the distant cries of the herring were charmingly unfamiliar from the small Irish pastures with forty shades of green.

Cooking Barbeque is intensely personal in the South. It seems being able to cook great barbeque is like a true religion with strong opinions about dry rubs, marinating and of course having the perfect sauce. I am still forever learning and taking it all in, but I know that in Georgia barbeque sauce is made sweet, and comes with a choice of mild or spicy. I also learned whilst in South Carolina that their barbeque sauce is mustard based.

In this particular case, the famous Kentucky bourbon barbeque sauce and the sweet Georgia sauce influenced my own Ulster Kitchen barbeque to create a sweet Irish whiskey barbeque sauce….get ready to lick your fingers!

I served this recipe to a native of South Carolina earlier this summer and he gave me the thumbs up. It’s great with avocado-corn salsa and I serve some extra barbeque sauce.

Grilled Loin Rib Pork Chop with Ulster Whiskey Barbeque Sauce

Sweet Pork Dry Rub

(6 Loin rib pork chops)
1 Tbsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp cracked black pepper
1 Tbsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cinnamon

Sweet Irish Whiskey Barbeque Sauce

1 cup Irish Whiskey
1 cup ketchup
1 cup apple cider vinegar
½ cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tbsp onion (minced)
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper

Combine all the dry ingredients to make the rub. Apply rub to the surface of the uncooked pork chops before grilling. This can be done several hours in advance or else just before grilling.

To make barbeque sauce combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer gently for 30 minutes or until the sauce has been reduced to about half.

Preheat grill to medium/hot.

Place chops on the grill and cook for about 7-10 minutes on each side. To check that pork is cooked use a sharp knife to cut the thickest part of the chop and check that it is done to your preferred liking. Brush a little barbeque sauce over both sides of chops and cook for 1 more minute on each side.

Remove meat from grill and rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Brush pork chops with a little more barbeque sauce.

Enjoy, while the summer lasts!

J.