Coffee Marinated Pork Chops

This is by far one of my favorite marinades for pork. I normally use pork chops and they always come out slightly sweet with some kick from the coffee plus a deeply hearty flavor from the molasses. The acid in the coffee does a fantastic job of softening the meat, which makes the pork chops very tender on the grill.

Although I’ve never tried it, I could imagine this being a great marinade for other cuts of the pig as well or for beef.



Grill baby, grill!



Adapted from Alton Brown’s Coffee Marinated Pork Chops

Ingredients

250 ml strong coffee, cold

30 gr instant coffee granules

175 ml molasses

30 ml apple cider vinegar

15 ml Dijon mustard

10 gr garlic powder*

6 gr. salt

3 gr. ground ginger

15 gr. dried thyme

3 gr. freshly ground black pepper

4 bone-in, 1-inch thick pork chops**

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1 cup cool strong coffee

6 ounces molasses (weight)

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon garlic powder*

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

6 to 8 sprigs fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 bone-in, 1-inch thick pork chops**

* Unlike Alton, I use garlic powder in my marinade because fresh garlic usually burns on the grill and tastes bitter. I also add espresso powder to my marinade to help enhance the coffee flavour in the final product.

** For the grill, it’s best to use pork chops that are nicely marbled and not too lean. Lean pork chops dry out easily on the grill and taste like cardboard (but you already knew that).

Directions

1 Mix all ingredients except the pork chops in a non-reactive bowl (glass or plastic).

2 If you will be taking these to a friend’s house, place the pork chops in a zipper-top plastic bag, then pour in the marinate and close the top so no liquid escapes. Then double bag the chops in another zipper bag to ensure no accidents occur on the trip over to the BBQ. If you are cooking these at home, place the pork chops into the bowl you mixed the marinade in, then cover with plastic wrap. The longer the chops sit in the marinate, the better (obviously not for a week but up to 24 hours). If you are short on time, marinade your chops for at least 2 hours.

3 Cook the chops on the grill until aren’t pink in the centre. You can also tell pork chops are cooked thoroughly when they have some give, the edges have turned brown from the sugar in the molasses crystalizing and a knife can’t easily be poked in the center.

4 Serve and enjoy! Potato salad goes nicely with these chops as does a simple side salad. 

For those of you living in Norway, molasses can be found in most health food stores or natural foods stores.

This post is for non-commercial, personal use only. Copyright © 2012 by Whitney @ Thanks For The Food.

                                                     

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