Mid-June is time for an eagerly anticipated camping and fishing trip to Davis Lake, near Portola, California, which lies between the southern Cascades and the Sierra, an hour north of Truckee. A group of fishing friends from western Nevada County head up and over Donner Pass from our homes in the Sierra foothills and north through the mesmerizing Sierra Valley on the way to our encampment. We are chasing the elusive damselfly hatch, which can produce spectacular sight fishing, spotting and casting our flies to working fish gorging on this aquatic bug, which brings large trout up to feed on the lake’s surface.
If that isn’t enough fun, we have evening barbecue gatherings that include live music and possibly an Irish jig danced around the campfire. Our last night in our lakeside encampment features grilled tri-tips to satisfy our red-meat cravings and a potluck for as many as 40 people. The night before, I cook for the regulars who help out in this production. Consequently, I’m always on the prowl for something interesting that can be grilled on a Forest Service campfire ring. We have hung a goat shoulder from an iron cooking tripod similar to ones used by pioneers and wagon train encampments. Rabbit has found its way to our grill, along with fillets from freshly caught chinook salmon, tomahawk rib eyes, organic game hens, flank steaks, wild turkey breasts, bison tenderloins, boneless legs of lamb, and a sausage extravaganza. It’s a night to forget about calorie counts, the so-called dangers of red meat, and cholesterol levels.
I’ve cooked and written about pork tenderloins, and I’ve roasted entire pork loins up to 14 pounds. Recently, I consulted with my butcher friend, Matthew Rodrigues, and he custom-cut from an entire loin to produce a 7-pound roast that would be perfect for my gathering of a dozen anglers and would feature flesh from the most tender and succulent part of the pig.
If you remove an entire large pork loin from its sealed package and lay it out flat, you will find the narrower, blade end, a center rib, a center loin, and a sirloin end. Stew meat, center-cut pork chops, a true pork roast, rib-eye chops, and then more stew meat come from the large psoas major muscle in that order. The boneless loin that comes in the sealed package at Costco has been stripped of bone and the smaller tenderloin that sits on the other side of the bone. Bone-in pork chops are cut to have both loin and tenderloin, separated by bone . . . like a small T-bone or porterhouse steak, with its strip steak and filet parts. Should you buy an entire loin such as found at Costco, there are numerous illustrated articles on the Internet that will help with the simple process of disassembling the entire cut, which is good in its own right on the grill.
A custom-cut roast from the loin midsection will have a covering of fat on one side and possibly a wrinkled, fatty area near one end that is the silverskin. Leave the white, flat fat and use a sharp knife to pull and trim the tough silverskin away. Next, ask if your butcher will vacuum-seal the entire roast and say “Thank you” when he does, because this will remove oxygen and protect the meat from moisture while it is in your cooler. On the way out, buy a bottle of Basque Meat Tenderizer Barbecue Sauce. (See “All-Star Ingredients in Camp” in this column in the November/December 2016 issue of California Fly Fisher.) This herb-and-vinegar-based product will penetrate your meat in an hour or so while the roast comes up to room temperature before going on the grill. Your last stop is in the deli department. Buy a third of a pound of thinly sliced Italian prosciutto, high-quality American bacon, serrano Spanish ham, or thinly sliced pancetta.
In camp, I remove the loin from my new supercooler, slit the vacuum-sealed package, and put the roast directly into an aluminum turkey-roasting pan without touching it. I buy a dozen of these pans at a time at the dollar store before camping trips or group barbecues. They make many chores easier and promote food safety by reducing hand contact in a camp setting without nearby water faucets. When you’re done with them, most campgrounds have recycle bins. Liberally douse the loin with the Basque Meat Tenderizer and cover the pan with foil for an hour. Just before the coals are ready, dust the loin with herbed garlic salt, wrap the prosciutto around the roast, and secure it with toothpicks.
You can cook the loin roast on a spit or just lay it on a flat grill surface above coals or even gas flames. Don’t be in a rush to get it done, because the fat layer will render, naturally baste the meat, and help produce a succulent, moist roast. When I’m cooking on a flat grill without a spit, I rinse out the marinade pan and use it as a foil cover that will even out the heat and reduce cooking times. We don’t need the high internal meat temperatures of your parent’s generation with modern pork. I use a digital thermometer and shoot for 140 degrees, testing several areas and even making an exploratory cut to ensure the gray-pink desired color that tells me the roast is around 140 degrees. Remember that large cuts will rise another 10 degrees after being removed from the grill and covered with foil for 10 minutes. That means I’m shooting for a final internal temperature of 150 degrees, which lies between medium rare and medium. Anything above that, and you have a dried-out, tough pork loin, the sort of disaster that gives these cuts a bad reputation. Watch the internal temperature carefully. It can rise rapidly at the end of cooking time. Turn the roast often. Your finished pork loin will have a crisp layer of prosciutto that is a wonderful appetizer or added treat and char marks that reflect caramelization of the roast’s surface. Caramelization is one of the secrets of enhanced flavor and produces a delightful texture that pleases the palate. After the 10-minute rest period, during which the juices pull back into the body of the meat, remove the foil and slice slightly diagonally into oval rounds. I thoroughly wash the foil pan or use a fresh one for the final product. For food-safety reasons, I don’t like cooked food to come in contact with marinade that has touched the product and has been at room temperature for any period of time.
I serve my pork with a bowl of D. L. Jardine’s Roasted Tomatillo Salsa on the side and garnish with cilantro sprigs. Fresh corn, a mild, vinegar-based coleslaw, and sliced heirloom tomatoes are all that I need to serve with it. Some of our guests like starch carbs, as well. A Dutch-oven bacon-bit cheddar au gratin potato dish, done during happy hour by our camp musician, was a big hit this year. If you follow these directions, you might find that your guests enjoy roast pork as much as those beefy tri-tips. It is leaner, and a tasty change of pace. Fajitas, tacos, or even Vietnamese bánh mì sandwiches the next night are naturals with any leftovers. Accompany the roast with a chilled barbera, rosé, or a moderate alcohol-content zinfandel. Claudia Rodin titled a cookbook Everything Tastes Better Outdoors. She’s right.
Editor’s note: regarding side dishes, or even mains, I’ve started baking casseroles on the grill, using the cover and indirect heat to create an oven. It’s a great way to stay out of the kitchen when evenings are hot. Consider, though, using old bakeware that you won’t mind getting discolored. Smoke stains can be hard to scrub away.
