Roasted Garlic & Chile-Crusted Pork Loin
This dish has some serious garlic happenin’. We developed it as one of a whole bunch of recipes for a Dinosaur garlic festival. It marked the birth of the Custom-Que at the restaurant, a special menu that’s broadened our repertoire and given our customers a taste of some unique dishes influenced by the world of wood-fired cookin’.
Recipe information
Yield
feeds 6
Ingredients
The Rub
The Roast
Preparation
Step 1
Squeeze the roasted garlic pulp from each clove into a bowl. Add the salt, ground and flaked chiles, cumin, brown sugar, and olive oil and make a wet rub.
Step 2
Stab holes into the pork loin and insert a quarter of a garlic clove into each. Massage the wet rub all over the meat, pushing some of it in between the two loins. Do this ahead, cover, and refrigerate overnight for maximum flavor penetration.
Step 3
Fire up the grill, mounding a hot coal bed on one side. Just before grilling, season the meat all over with salt and a grinding of black pepper.
Step 4
Set the meat directly over the coals to sear for 2 minutes, making sure to scrape onto the roast any of the coating rub stuck to the plate it was setting on. Sear the remaining 3 sides for 2 minutes each. Push the meat to the other side of the grill, away from the coals. Cover the grill and adjust the heat so that it’s from 325° to 350° inside. Roast for about 1 hour, til the meat reaches an internal temperature of 150° (see Cookin’ Perfect Pork, page 95). Pull the roast off the grill and let it rest for 15 minutes.
Step 5
Carve and serve immediately, or let it cool completely and then slice for sandwiches
