Pork Loin – 3 Easy Steps For Pork Roast Fit For a King
Pork loin has been the most prized portion of the piggy since man first domesticated the animal.
Unfortunately today’s average home cook using Grandma’s favorite recipes just can’t produce a decent roast of pork. There’s a reason for that.
Grandma’s Pork and Today’s Pork
Grandma had more forgiving pork in her day. The typical hog in her time was raised as much for the lard as it was for the meat. In fact they were often referred to as “lard hogs”.
The extra fat in her pork roast gave her a wider window of forgiveness for overcooking, which is the primary problem with cooking today’s pork.
Somewhere around the mid-1980′s the low-fat craze hit and health conscious folks started to shun pork products in favor of more poultry.
The pork industry responded!
They quickly developed leaner breeds of pigs and introduced new growing and feeding techniques to produce leaner pork.
Pigs are prolific breeders and birth to table time is extremely short (The average pig never sees his first birthday!). So it didn’t take long before the pork industry was touting pork as “the other white meat”.
This series of events is what brought headaches to the home cook. The leaner pork narrowed the window of roasting success dramatically.
If you suspect that your mother-in-law laughs about your pork roast behind your back then here’s what you need to do:
Three Easy Steps To Delicious Pork Roasts
With just three simple steps that are easy to follow you will have your mother-in-law asking you for cooking advice.
The first step in the perfect pork roast recipe is brining. When the temperature of meat reaches 120 degrees the cells begin to contract and squeeze out moisture.
Brining your roast in a solution of 1 cup of non-iodized salt to 1 gallon of water for 24 hours adds water weight to your roast. Some of that water will squeeze out during cooking but some will remain.
A juicier roast is the result.
Step number two is to put you in control of temperature. In order to do that you must make the tiny investment of buying two thermometers.
Oven thermostats are notoriously inaccurate. My own oven is off as much as 25 degrees at some temperatures. My temperature dial has about 1/8″ slack in it. I mean you have to turn it that much before it does anything.
So you need an accurate oven thermometer.
Next is a meat thermometer. For just a few dollars you can buy a probe thermometer that will let you know the internal temperature of your roast at all times.
Step number three has to do with temperature also. Roast your pork low and slow. Low temperature cooking results in a more evenly done product that doesn’t dry out as much as high temperature cooking.
250 degrees is hot enough for your oven. Be sure to go by your oven thermometer. Cooking time will be somewhat longer but with your probe thermometer you know exactly when it’s done.
Speaking of when it’s done I would like to say that I take my roast out of the oven at 140 degrees on my probe thermometer. Residual cooking will take it to about 145. It’s moist and juicy at this temperature and perfectly done even though recommended temperature is 160 degrees.
You be your own judge!
You now have in your possession the keys to cooking moist and tender pork roast. Just brine your roast, control temperatures and cook it low and slow.
Use the technique and when your mother-in-law talks behind your back she’ll likely be bragging about how great you are at cooking pork loin.
Pork Loin Recipes
Most of Grandmas recipes will have to be adapted to this method. But that’s not a problem. The technique will easily fit into not only Grandmas recipes but also any others that you might have.
By: Jim Bolding
About the Author:
If you would like specific pork recipes there’s plenty on Jim Bolding’s website Pork Recipes Online. Check out the Pork Loin Recipes section for great loin recipes.