Grilling Season '12: The Double Pork Rollup

Burgers and ribs are classic barbecue fare, but there's a whole lot more that can be done with a grill and some charcoal. This summer we're challenging ourselves to try as many different kinds of grilled meals as possible, and one of our most recent adventures involves a double dosage of pork. This rolled-up meal takes inspiration from two different sources: bacon wrapped meat, and cream cheese stuffed jalapenos. We decided to blend the two ideas together, and it ended up being a match made in heaven.

To start off with, we put together what's going to be the stuffing of the double pork rollup. Our first ingredients are roasted red and yellow bell peppers. If you ever see a recipe calling for roasted peppers, you don't have to buy an expensive jar at the store. Instead, cut a bell pepper in half and flatten it out on a baking sheet, and then set the oven to "broil." Leave the oven door slightly open and broil for 5 - 10 minutes until the skin is blackened.

After the peppers have had time to cool, the skin is pulled off and they are cut into thin slices. There's plenty more going inside the pork though - here we're chopping up both jalapenos and artichoke hearts.

Stuffed peppers or meats frequently have an outer breading or are coated with bread crumbs. To simulate that, we put butter crackers into a plastic bag and then rolled a rolling pin over it to create a fine crushed powder that tastes much better than normal bread crumbs.

For the main layer of meat we're using several large pork chops. To reduce on the cooking time and increase the surface area we can't keep them this thick, however.

Using a meat mallet, Megan pounded out the pork chops, which reduces their thickness. This can be a messy process though, so to keep it simple and clean the chops are placed between two layers of plastic wrap.

For the "double" part of the double pork roll-up we're going to wrap the chops in bacon. The roll-up creation starts in earnest by laying down a layer of tin foil and then placing strips of bacon on the foil.

Now that the pork chops are properly flattened they are going over the bacon. Here we've layed down the first two pieces.

And here all the pork is now covering the bacon on the fin foil layer. When the tin foil finally gets rolled up it will result in a meat roll with bacon on the outside and pork chops on the inside.

Don't forget about those stuffing ingredients we put together! Here we've got a layer of cream cheese and the crushed crackers.

Finishing the roll are the roasted bell peppers, the jalapenos, and the artichoke hearts. The entire thing is then tightly rolled together.

When cooking thick meats (or in this case, several layers of thin meat), you want to use indirect heat instead of direct flame so it cooks evenly without burning on the edges. For indirect heat, spread your coals out onto two sides of the grill, leaving an empty strip in the middle.

After turning several times and being cooked over the course of an hour, we opened up the tin foil to see how things were progressing inside.

Besides just the flavors of the meat and veggies, we're brushing on a sauce as well consisting of mustard, honey, and beer.

As you can see below, unfortunately the roll-up started to unravel. While this didn't change the amazing taste or texture, it did mess up the presentation a bit (although this still looks pretty on it's own - it's amazing how much it resembles a sub sandwich made completely out of meat!)

Although there were vegetables inside the roll-up, we still wanted a side salad to complete our meal. To put together a perfectly topped salad, we sliced up tomato, bell pepper, peperoncini, green onions, and avocado.

This is the base of my salad, where the vegetables are starting to get layered on before adding the dressing.

I prefer thousand island on my salad (and even made my own recently - which will be covered in an upcoming blog), while Megan goes for Ranch instead.

To complete my salad, I've tossed on some wasabi peas and the leftover cheese curds from the poutine we made during the Canadian stop of our culinary world tour.

Remember how the roll-up came apart a bit before? Unfortunately this prevented us from putting the roll on direct heat for the last few minutes of cooking to get the bacon crispy. We ended up finishing the roll-up under the broiler to crisp up the outer edge of bacon. You can also see kitchen twine in the picture below where we tried to "patch up" the meat to cook directly above the flame, but by that point the roll was falling apart too much to salvage.

We primarily use this twine for tying up whole chicken or turkey, and to see how it's utilized in the kitchen check out our Easter chickens, lemon chicken baked inside a dough crust, or orange injected chicken.

While it didn't end up as pretty as we'd hoped due to overstuffing and unraveling, it still smelled amazing and retained it's basic shape.

Here I've cut up several slices to get laid on a plate next to the side salad. To get the right presentation next time we'll use thicker bacon and put twine on from the beginning so the roll doesn't unwrap during the cooking process.

Here's my finished plate, filled to the brim with piping hot veggies and a double helping of delicious pork, along with a delicious and filling salad.

As this year's grilling season continues we'll soon be covering ribs injected with homemade root beer barbecue sauce, more unique twists on traditional potato salad, and the continuation of our culinary "world tour" as it heads to Greenland. Check back soon for more cooking at Six-Seven-Eight!