Milk and Honey Brined Pork Chops
By: Darren Vengroff
Published: Thursday, December 10, 2009 - 5:43pm

Ingredients




2 thick cut pork loin chops, bone in. 1 to 1-1/2 pounds each
3 cups milk
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
 cup honey
1/4 cup salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 mediums shallots, roughly chopped
5 cloves garlic, roughty chopped
Apple wood chips for smoking

Preparation

1 Mix the milk, water, and stock together in a large bowl. 2 Stir in honey, salt and mustard until dissolved. 3 Add bay leaves, peppercorns, shallots and garlic. 4 Pat the porkchops dry, place in a shallow non-reactive vessel, and cover with the brine mixture. 5 Place in the refrigerator and allow to brine for at least 12 and up to 48 hours. 6 Remove pork from brine and allow to air dry for 10 min while you prepare the smoker. 7 Smoke for 1 hour over apple wood at approx. 200 degrees Fahrenheit, turning over once midway through. 8 During the final minutes of smoking, prepare the hottest grill you can. 9 Transfer the chops to the grill. 10 Mark for 2 minutes, rotate, mark two minutes more, then turn the chops over. 11 Cook until medium rare, 4-6 additional minutes depending on the heat of your grill. 12 Remove from grill and let rest 7 minutes under a foil tent. 13 Carve the tenderloin medallion from the bone and keep whole. 14 Remove the strip side of the chop from the bone and slice perpendicular to the bone side.

About


This is the best pork chop I have ever made. Make sure you start with thick loin chops from a reputable farm or butcher. Thin, lean supermarket chops will benefit from this brine, but they will not produce the kind of results that free-range pork does. I buy my chops from a farm that lets their hogs forage in the forest and feeds them just enough to keep them from going feral.