Sausage Stuffed Pork Chops

Patti asked our supermarket butcher to cut her some 2 inch pork chops this week. Then, she made sausage rice stuffing loaded with garlic, sweet onions and sun dried tomatoes for them and smoked them on the Royall wood pellet grill/smoker. As you can see from the pictures and the video they were beautiful, jam packed with flavors form the mesquite smoke and the sausage stuffing. Umm, So Good.

Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes smoke, 15 minutes cook
Grill: Royall 3000 Wood Pellet Grill/Smoker
Pellets: Mesquite

Ingredients:

Pork chops
1 cup brown rice
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup sweet onion, chopped
1 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped
2 lbs. Farmer John bulk sausage w/sage
2 Tbsp. crushed dried garlic
Salt & pepper to taste

Sausage Rice Stuffing

Directions: Sausage Rice Stuffing

In a large saucepan boil broth, lower heat and add rice. Cover and simmer until broth is absorbed, about 30 minutes. Remove to a large bowl. Add sausage and the rest of the ingredients to the saucepan and sauté until the sausage is no longer pink. Mix the sausage into rice and set aside until you are ready to stuff your chops.

Cut a pocket into the pork chop for stuffing

Directions: Pork Chops

Cut a pocket into the pork chop for your stuffing. I try to keep the opening small and deep to help hold the stuffing. Make your entry cut and then cut deep as far back as the bone then around to the sides making as deep a pocket as you can. (See video.)

Using a spoon fill the pocket you cut in the pork chop with your stuffing, packing it in tight as you go along.

You’ll have leftover stuffing. Just freeze it for future use.

Fill the pocket with your stuffing

Cooking Directions: Royall Wood Pellet Grill/Smoker

Open the lid and set the dial to “225”. After about five minutes you can shut the lid. Give it about 10 minutes to heat up. Patti has lined the drip pan with foil for me, it makes for easier clean up.

Ready for the Royall

Place the stuffed chops directly onto the grill and just let it hang out in the smoke and get happy for 30 minutes or so. This is referred to as “Smoking” or “Hot Smoking”, the temperature is around 225 degrees. 30 minutes of smoking is not enough to have any cooking effect on your meat but it is enough to open the pores so that the meat can pick up all the flavor of the smoke.

After 30 minutes, turn the digital control up to 400 degrees and pull the meat off the grill. I used my Grillgrates, so I put them on now to get hot for searing. When the grill comes up to temperature add your meat back onto the grill. I did this for 6 minutes per side. I turned these ¼ turn after 3 minutes per side to get those nice grill marks that look so good. I pulled them at 140 degrees; the new USDA says 145 for pork.

Nice sear from our GrillGrates

When the meat reaches an internal temp around 135 – 140 pull it off, cover it and let it rest for 10 minutes before serving. This will be medium well. Keep in mind that the meat will continue cooking for another 10 degrees after you pull it off the grill.

Checking my temp looking for 135-140 degrees

Note: I get a lot of questions about the kind of pellets you can use with a recipe. Keep in mind that a recipe is just an outline. Some you need follow closely like when you are making bread, but most you can do anything you can dream, our favorite way to cook. Feel free to mix and match the pellets until you find a combination you really like. Also you are only smoking at temps less than 250 degrees, anything higher is cooking and there will not be much if any smoke so it does not matter what kind of pellet you are using.

Directions: Gas Grill
Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes smoke, 15 minutes cook
Grill: Low Indirect Heat for smoking, High Direct Heat for cooking

Preparing Grill:  Low Indirect Heat

Preheat your grill to low heat (180 – 225) and turn off one side so you will be cooking with indirect heat. Add your wet hickory chips over the fire and oil the grill. A cooking spray is easiest for this. (Note: you can add your hickory directly to the grill or you can use foil smoke packets.(Two handfuls wet chips and one dry, fold foil into a packet, poke holes in it with a fork and you’re good to go.)

Preparing Grill: High Direct Heat

Preheat your grill to High heat (400-500). Add your wet hickory chips to the fire and oil the grill. A cooking spray is easiest for this. (Note: you can add your hickory directly to the grill or you can use foil smoke packets.(Two handfuls wet chips and one dry, fold foil into a packet, poke holes in it with a fork and you’re good to go.)

Let’s Eat

About our Recipes

We do our recipes on our patio where we have a lineup of grills, including Royall Wood Pellet Grill/Smoker, Traeger, Char Griller side box smoker, Charmglow, Char-Broil, The Big Easy, Brinkman and Weber. I call it our “Wall of Grill”. Our grilling styles are healthy and low fat and will fit pellet heads, gas, natural wood and even charcoal purists. Almost any of our recipes can be done on any kind of good BBQ.

The important thing to keep in mind is TIME & TEMPERATURE. You can even do some of them in the oven or crock pot, but, then you lose all the flavors you get from cooking outdoors. But sometimes it does rain.

Remember that a recipe is simply an outline; it is not written in stone. Don’t be afraid to make changes to suit your taste.

Take it and run with it….

Live your Passion,
Ken & Patti

http://datenightdoins.com
blog.datenightdoins.com 

Some of our Beef, Sausage and Bacon Provided By:

MM Livestock Co.

Grass Fed Beef and Lamb

Pastured Pork & Poultry

Megan McDowell 951 805 7341

builttoslide@msn.com     http://www.mmlivestockco.com