Injecting Meat: Pineapple Pork

One method of cooking that we've never  really tried before is directly injecting meat to increase the flavor instead of marinating or standard seasoning. After seeing how incredibly moist and tender the injected meat looks on shows like BBQ Pitmasters, we decided it was time to change that. Luckily the other week we randomly stopped into a grocery store we don't normally frequent and found an injector on clearance - for 99 cents! Here's the intimidating needle fresh out of the package and ready to inject for the first time:

For our first test run with the injecting needle we decided to cook a bone-in pork shoulder picnic roast in the oven. To further go in directions we don't usually travel, the pork would be cooked Hawaiian style with pineapple and slightly sweeter flavors. The final injecting mix included orange juice, teriyaki sauce, ginger, melted butter, ghost pepper salt, and garlic and onion salt.

Here's the pork roast in question, getting washed off before we start the injection process.

This needle is absolutely massive and using it the first time felt a bit like performing surgery. I'm hoping I never accidentally poke myself and press down on the plunger...

With the injector, all the flavors directly infuse the meat from the inside out, so you don't just end up with flavor on the top layer. Adding all that liquid also makes the meat incredibly tender.

Here we've finished injecting the meat and poured some of the excess liquid on top, as well as sprinkled on some pepper.

Towards the end of the baking we added on some slices of pineapple to go on top of the roast. They may look intimidating, but it's not too difficult to crack these open and get to the fresh fruit flavor.

Megan sliced up a few pieces of the pineapple off the bottom. Normally you'd want to cut off the sides of the pineapple first to make it easier to slice, but we were only using half the pineapple and saving the rest for a grilled pork meal the next day (more on that amazing experience later!)

The pork roast is coming along nicely here, and is about to be covered in an extra glaze along with the sliced pineapple.

For the finishing glaze, Megan cooked together pineapple mustard, brown sugar, teriyaki sauce, and orange marmalade.

The pineapple slices were then layered on top of the nearly finished roast. The pineapple not only adds more flavor to the pork, but comes out cooked through and delicious on its own.

Once it's the right consistency, the pineapple glaze is poured all over the pork and pineapple slices.

After finishing up in the oven, here's the final product sliced and served along with brown rice and a salad. To keep the dinner theme consistent, we threw on mandarin oranges and used a sweet dressing for the salad.

Although the needle was a bit scary, using the injection made the roast more tender than any we've ever cooked before, and added in a succulent flavor well worth the effort. There's definitely more meat injecting in our future after this delicious success.

Now that we've gotten comfortable with this style of cooking, we'll soon be putting up a new blog showing how we made world class pork ribs injected with barbecue sauce, and we've still got our upcoming culinary world tour brewing, starting off with a trip into Mexican cuisine. Check back soon for more cooking adventures!