Pork Shoulder Western Style Ribs - Grilled

When I made the Pork Shoulder Western Style Ribs in the oven (discussed in my June 2, 2010 post), I had about half the package of raw meat remaining.  I tossed the pork pieces into a gallon sized Ziploc bag with 1 /2 cup of apple vinegar, 1 /4 cup of grape seed oil, two tablespoons of lemon juice and one tablespoon Worcestershire sauce.  I sealed the bag and kneaded to mix all the ingredients into the meat and then put the bag in the freezer.

A few days ago, I was planning for dinners and I removed some steak to grill (see June 15, 2010 post).  I also removed the bag of pork shoulder pieces and put it in the refrigerator to thaw.  I figured that if I was going to use the barbeque for grilling the steak, I may as well also grill the pork once the steak finished.

While the steak was cooking, in a coffee mug I mixed a marinade for basting the pork while it cooked.  I mixed 1 /2 cup of apple vinegar, 1 /4 cup water, two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, one teaspoon of sea salt, and two tablespoons of olive oil in a mug.  I knew the oil would not mix with the rest of the liquids, but I use a silicon basting brush that has a bunch of little fingers that I would use each time I basted to mix the ingredients then slather them on the meat.

I placed the pork pieces in the center of the grill over the indirect heat and let them cook for 90 minutes.  Every fifteen minutes I would turn the meat over and slap on another layer of the marinade.  Last year I grilled some pork ribs (on direct heat) and I didn’t give them a basting every fifteen minutes, I ended up with some very dry and tough ribs to chew.

We ate the grilled pork ribs for dinner the following night accompanied by brown rice, broccoli, apples slices and green salad.  While they were moist and very tasty, they still had a lot of the connective tissue attached that didn’t soften when they cooked, so we would hit some very rubbery places.  The recipe that I cooked in the oven seemed to break down that tissue so that all the pieces were soft.  Both recipes left quite a bit of fat on the pork that has to be cut off when eating, but it is less than ten percent of the total volume and it comes off easily.

I don’t think I would grill the pork shoulder pieces again, but I will try one of the crock pot recipes and see how they turn out using a different cooking method.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell