Bob Kabobs

My dad, (Bob)'s B-day is on the 4th of July. Every year he grills some kind of meat fest. This year he his making Bob Kabobs which will be kabobs filled with marinated pork, chicken and beef. He was asking me how to make the pork less tough. I think he bought boneless pork chops from costco and cut them into chunks and marinated them. Any ideas?????

Cheaper, fattier cuts of pork? (assuming you're not going to cook low and slow)

JeanneBean wrote: This year he his making Bob Kabobs which will be kabobs filled with marinated pork, chicken and beef.

I would use pork loin or tenderloin and marinate overnight.

There is no slow cooking in grilling without the risk of overcooking.

Do not marinate with raw pineapple or pineapple juice as you will end up with pork mush.

Instead of marinating lean pork, you may want to consider brining and then applying a rub, paste, or glaze for more flavor.

Best,
Michael

I think Michael is spot on here, brine and rub rather than marinate.

I would also suggest he pay close attention to temperature of the meat while he's grilling it. I'd pull it off the grill at 160 degrees at the hottest, ideally more like 150. If people are comfortable eating slightly pink pork, 145 is even better.

Yeah, that's the real answer right there-- it's tough because the government tells everybody to cook it too far. Brining will help, but the best thing he can do is cook it to around 145 where it's still a little pink. Or as close to that as he dares. Really, it will be fine.



I ate this a week ago and have yet to die.

Ditto on brining and on temperature.

There is a great article at Cooks Illustrated on temperature. The gist is that there are NO cases of illness from trichinosis/trichinella in the US that weren't from small farms where they fed them garbage, etc.

Commercial pigs? Not problem. Since the pork is so lean these days, it's like shoe leather if you heat it to 170. . . or 160. The parasite is killed at 140 or so. Take the meat off at 145, let it sit for a few minutes and it will rise to 148 or so. This is plenty to kill it, even if is was present, which it is 99.99 percent certain not to be.

I just went through this with my partner. His family is obsessed with critters in food. They can't stand meat that isn't so overcooked it's inedible. This works with low and slow, but a steak???? At any rate, I showed him all of the information and he finally came around. We had a pork loin stuffed with tapenade. Brined it first, then grilled it to 145. Delicious.

One note on the brine from my perspective. You'll see different amount of salt and sugar to water on different Websites. CI researched it and decided that less salt doesn't work. But, I don't like salty, so I've played with it. I can use less salt - not a lot, but some - and slightly less time. I still get more tender meat and a little less salt.

Last caveat - if you brine, watch the salt content of any rubs or sauces - I brined some ribs a month or so ago then used my regular rub - full of salt. While good, they were too salty. Now I have a batch of rub that I keep for when I do brine - it doesn't have the salt in it and it works much better.

According to the CDC, there are, on average, 12 cases of trichinosis per year in the U.S., and they are commonly associated with eating raw or undercooked wild game, rather than pork.

And one interesting fact: freezing pork ≤ 6" thick at 5°F for 20 days kills any worms that might be present.

Geo

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites ... inosis.htm

HI,

There is an early LTHforum thread on handling pork that concludes with a quote from Cook's Illustrated on trichonosis: http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=148#148

Regards,