Pork Log – Bacon Weaved pork wrapped in pork stuffed with more pork (and other s

[fishrman]

Reader warning:  This is a long one, so you might want to walk over to the fridge, pull out a cold adult beverage in brown or green bottle, and settle comfortably in your chair before getting started.  It's OK, I'll wait.

OK, back?  Good!  Here we go.

I had such good luck with the last pork loin I weaved, it was time to do another one.  The occasion was meeting my daughter's boyfriend for the first time, and using that as an excuse to get the whole famn damily together for an evening.  There were going to be 8 of us, so I needed a larger loin than the last time.  I ended up buying a 10 lb. loin and cutting it down to about a 7 lb. beast to use for the recipe.  Simple, right?





The next step was to butterfly the loin and I decided to try and make a flat that was ½" to ¾" thick to allow for more stuffing to be used.  In deciding on which knife would be best for this I came to the conclusion that this would be a great introduction to meat for my new skinning knife.  What a good choice that was!








For scale purposes, the knife is about 13" long, so you can see it became a really nice canvas on which I would be able to put all the stuffing goodness.   After doing the last loin, I decided I would cold smoke the butterflied loin to get some good flavor all the way through.  Well, this loin flat turned out to be a bit larger than I had expected, so had to get a bit creative in how I was going to get it in the smoker.  I wanted to keep the meat separated so all surfaces could have access to the smoke.  Decided to use a combination of my snack stick hangers and a couple of smoker racks to get where I wanted to go.








Then it was into the smoker with my mailbox adaptor and two 2-liter frozen bottles of water to keep the temp down.





Put in two hours of hickory and the temp never got above 65.  Just before the smoke was done I took a peek to find that it really didn't look any different that when I put it in. 





There was a lot of moisture and I wondered if I should have really patted it down well or air dried it for a couple of hours before putting it in.  But once I brought it into the kitchen and laid it out to put the stuffing on, wow, there was a LOT of smoke that did make it onto/into the meat.  The smokey aroma permeated the room.  That part of the operation was a success, something that was confirmed upon the eating!  So now for the stuffing.  Ingredients were:

¼ Cup margarine
4  Large Fuji apples, ¾" dice
½ Yellow onion
1 Tbs Pepper
1 Tbs. Smoked salt
1 tsp. Cinnamon
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 Cup dice bacon, browned
1 Cup seasoned bread crumbs
¼ Cup brown sugar (not shown, added after tasting)
¼ Cup apple juice (not shown, added after tasting)

Melted the margarine in the pan and cooked the onion until soft, added the garlic and cooked for another minute or two.  Added the apples and cooked until they softened, the dumped in the pepper, salt, cinnamon, bacon, and bread crumbs and cooked for just a minute to blend the flavors.  Tasted at that point and decided to add in the brown sugar and apple juice.  That was good.  Wished I'd doubled the recipe at this point to have some to serve on the side!





Now for the layering of flavor.  First, I seasoned the loin with salt and pepper, then on went the spinach.





The spinach would add color and a little moisture, but I wanted some creaminess as well, so the next layer was sliced provolone cheese.





Then it was time to put the stuffing on top of it all.  I think I was getting a little excited at how this was all coming out at this point and forgot to take a picture of this step.  Fortunately I have the photo from the last loin I stuffed and they look a lot alike!





So while the butterflied loin was smoking, I made a weave out of 2 lbs. of thick bacon slices.  This is a fun exercise and rewarding when you looking at the result.





But life has a way of humbling one, and this is a great example.  You see, that 7 lb. pork loin, when stuffed, had turned into a Pork Log, and the bacon weave of which I was so proud turned out to be inadequate for the task at hand.





So made the call and ran to the butcher and got 2 MORE lbs. of bacon and made a second weave to allow the whole log to be covered!





As you can see, I cheated and used some toothpicks to hold the two weaves together.  If I find myself in this situation again, I'll interleave the two weaves into one large blanket to wrap that puppy up!

As I'm assembling this log, my thoughts turn to "How long is this going to take to cook?  It was 9:30 am and dinner was going to be at 7 pm.  I didn't weigh it, but the pork was 7 lbs., the bacon was 4 lbs., and the stuffing was probably another 2 lbs. or so for a total of >13 lbs, so based on previous butts I'd done, this could take a while.  So I went ahead and put it in figuring I could FTC it if it got done a couple of hours early.  I had preheated the BDS to 250F, put the log in, and reset it for 225 with the Maverick probe in the center of the beast.  Because the pork had already been smoked for 2 hours the starting IT was 72F, and important factor I did not fully appreciate at the time.  Put in 3 hours of hickory for the bacon and let her smoke.

Since we had guests coming over and I had not yet cleaned up the back yard from the winter accumulation of stuff that blows in, falls from trees, or is stirred up by construction, I spent the day doing my spring cleaning.  Periodically I would take a peek at the Maverick to see how things were progressing, and progress they did.  By 2:30 pm the IT had hit the "Time to take it out of the smoker" IT of 140F! 




(the stringy stuff hanging down is provolone cheese that melted out)


This was a bit earlier than I had dared to believe, but it was what it was.  Followed the plan and FTC'd the pork log leaving the Maverick in place.  The IT rose to 145 on its own, and then started to slowwwwwwwly fall.  So slowly that by 6:30, when I turned on the oven to preheat to 400F to finish browning up the bacon the IT was still at 135F – 4 hours later!  So popped it in the oven for 10-15 minutes at that point, pulled it out when the bacon was nicely browned and sizzling, put it on the wooden cutting board and showed it to the dinner crowd.  The oooohs and aaaaahs certainly made the whole process worthwhile.  Unfortunately the money shot didn't come out as clearly as it could have, but I have to admit I had a crowd of hungry people with rumbling tummies threating me with steak knives if I didn't get that porky goodness on their plates RIGHT NOW!





Slices were thick, but seconds were requested.  The Chef was happy.  Served it up with a side of Sweet Corn Risotto and a simple green salad.  But we weren't done there, I had one more surprise for the group, a Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie, warmed and served with French Vanilla ice cream.  A really nice finish to a great day.





Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.  This one is DEFINITELY getting a sticky in my own personal recipe book!

[slowpoke]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!OUT STANDING!!!!!!!

[mikecorn.1]

Ditto!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kahunas]

Holy crap that looks good!

[watchdog56]

That is one hunk of meat. Nice job.

[ghost9mm]

Awesome

[KyNola]

A lot of work but the results certainly justified all of the effort put forth. Congrats.

[Smoker John]

Fantastic, great info & pictorial, that weave is great

[muebe]

Looks fantastic!

[amigo smoker]

Very good report

and by the looks of it even better result

well done

mat

[OldHickory]

This is a beautiful cook, outstanding.  Lots of work, good pic's and wonderful write up.  I like your stuffing -roll, and your choice of desert -------Holy Batman, pecan pie is my fav.

[fishrman]

This is a beautiful cook, outstanding.  Lots of work, good pic's and wonderful write up.  I like your stuffing -roll, and your choice of desert -------Holy Batman, pecan pie is my fav.

The pecan pie recipe is an easy one and the chocolate adds a nice twist to the standard pecan flavor.  Here ya go:

Chocolate Pecan Pie
1   Unbaked pie shell                                              ½   C. granulated sugar
3   C. pecans, whole and coarsely chopped              ¼   C. light brown sugar
1   C. Semi-sweet chocolate chips                              ¾   C. corn syrup
4   eggs, beaten                                               1   tbs. vanilla extract
¼   C. butter or margarine - melted                     pinch of salt
Vanilla ice cream

Preheat the oven to 375F.  Mix together and spread the pecan pieces and the chocolate chips evenly on the bottom of the pie shell.  In a mixing bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients together (if using a pie shell larger than 9", double the amount of these ingredients and use enough to fill the pan).  Pour the filling over the pecans.  Bake for about 1 hour (start checking at 45 minutes) or until the filling sets.  Cool for 10 minutes before slicing.  Lay one piece of the pie on the plate with a scoop of ice cream.

[OldHickory]

Thanks for the recipe.  The chocolate chips should add a nice touch.  This is coppied and logged in.