Big Mista's Perfect Pork Chops!

Big Mista's Perfect Pork Chops!

Neil Strawder - aka - Big Mista is a Southern California BBQ icon.  He has been on BBQ Pitmasters, cooks demos for Fresh & Easy and runs a very successful BBQ business serving thousands of SoCal faithful from his various stops at Farmer's Markets.  He's also a top competitor in the KCBS Competition BBQ Scene and also one of my friends and hero!  Neil has a new product line of BBQ Rubs and when my shipment arrived, I rushed to the store and got some pork to try out the new Perfect Pork Rub.  Thick cut boneless chops sounded perfect.


My wife says that I can't just eat meat (not sure why yet) so I made up some vegetable hash to top off the pork chops and made some farfalline pasta as a side.









Let's start with the pork chops.   A heavy coating of Big Mista's Perfect Pork Rub on both sides.

The thin chops on the left are coated with Simply Marvelous Cherry Rub for the kids.  They tasted the Perfect Pork rub but they really love the Simply Marvelous - so they got it!




 The Perfect Pork Rub is a fairly fine ground rub with a simple ingredient list - salt, sugar, garlic, black pepper, and Spices.  It has a really nice complex flavor profile.  It starts out sweet, then a nice heat builds, and then the salt and heat mix and linger.  It coats really nice and after about 10 minutes seems to melt into the meat.




I put the chops on my Royall 3000 Pellet Grill at 250F and let 'em rip!   I love using pellet smokers because you turn it on, set the temp, put the food on, and go do something else.  The Royall is built like a tank so it can really cook efficiently.  A truly amazing unit.






Now back to the vegetable hash.  Simple ingredents that will accent the pork chop.  Red Bell Peppers, Green Onions, Chopped cashews, and apple.



Course chop the red bell pepper.  Slice the green onion, and grate the apple.  I had whole cashews so I pulsed them in a food processor a few times to get them more chopped / crushed.



 

 I had a little fun cooking up the vegetable has.  Started out with some Strawberry Boones Farm, added in a 1/4 tspn of minced garlic, 1/2 tspn of lime juice and as soon as the garlic was heated up, I started adding the vegetables.









I cooked the onions for about 5 minutes in the garlic then added in the red bell peppers and grated apple together.





After about 3 - 4 more minutes - really just enough time to get the apple and pepper warmed up, I added in the chopped cashews.  The hash was really flavorful with some sweetness from the pepper and the strawberry wine and had a nice nutty crunch from the cashews.  It went with the pork chop perfectly.





I cooked up the farfalline.  Farfalline is kind of like a mini bow tie noodle.  It mixes easily with other ingredients.   This time I added in some shaved Parmesan and then when it was plated, added a sprinkle of Italian Herb Seasoning for some color.

 I cooked the pork chops to an internal temp of 145F and let them rest for a few minutes on the counter.  I put the farfalline on the side and topped the pork chops with the vegetable hash.  It was an outstanding blend of flavors and the rub did NOT disappoint.  The sweet and the heat balanced the pork perfectly.

I recommend this dry rub for any type of pork.  Please visit Big Mista's on line store and get you some.  This product made me cook like a pro!  It will be my new go to rub whenever I'm cooking pork!

Let's eat!  Perfectly!