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Ham-Cured, Smoked Pork With Cognac-Orange Glaze
![Ham-Cured, Smoked Pork With Cognac-Orange Glaze](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/03/24/dining/18Hamrex2/merlin_185056815_297077a6-000d-4de5-9447-999c1b460341-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 4 hours, plus 48 hours’ brining
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- ⅔packed cup dark brown sugar
- ½cup kosher salt
- 2teaspoons Prague powder #1
- 2fresh or dried bay leaves
- 2fresh orange zest strips
- 2cloves
- 1(3-pound) boneless pork loin
- 2cups freshly squeezed orange juice
- ½cup Cognac
- ½packed cup dark brown sugar
- ¼cup orange marmalade
- 1cinnamon stick
- ¼teaspoon ground cloves
- 1teaspoon cornstarch
- 1tablespoon Cointreau, Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur
- 3tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch chunks
- Sea salt and black pepper
For the Brined Pork
For the Glaze
Preparation
- Step 1
Make the brine: Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add the sugar, salt and Prague powder. Whisk until dissolved and remove from heat. Stir in 1 quart cold water. Pin the bay leaves to the orange zest strips using the cloves, and add them to the brine. Let the mixture cool to room temperature, about 1½ hours.
- Step 2
Wash the pork loin and blot dry. Place it in a baking dish just large enough to hold it.
- Step 3
Measure out ½ cup brine into a measuring cup. Draw the brine into a marinade injector and inject it into the center of the pork loin all over, inserting the needle at 1-inch intervals and drawing it out slowly as you depress the plunger, until you’ve used the full ½ cup brine and the brine starts to squirt out of the pork.
- Step 4
Transfer the pork to a large, heavy-duty resealable plastic bag. Add the brine from the baking dish, plus the remaining brine and seasonings, and tightly seal, squeezing out any air. Return the bagged pork to the baking dish to corral any leaks. Brine the pork in the refrigerator for 24 hours, turning several times along the way so it brines evenly.
- Step 5
Remove the loin from the brine and place it in another baking dish, reserving the brine. Re-inject the pork loin with the brine in the bag, again using about ½ cup (or more if you can get more in), then return the pork to the brine bag and continue brining and turning for another 24 hours, for a total brining time of 48 hours. The meat should turn a shade pinker. At this point, you can dry and smoke the pork loin, but if you brine it for another 24 hours, the flavor will be even richer.
- Step 6
Drain the brined pork loin in a colander, discarding the brine. Rinse the loin well with cold water, drain again and blot dry with paper towels. Place it on a wire rack over a baking dish and let it dry for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
- Step 7
Meanwhile, set up your grill for indirect grilling and heat to medium (about 350 degrees). If using wood chips, soak about 3 cups chips in water to cover for 30 minutes, then drain. If using wood chunks, there is no need to soak them.
- Step 8
Place the pork loin on the grate, fat-side up, over indirect heat, set over a drip pan. Add 1½ cups wood chips or 2 wood chunks to the coals.
- Step 9
Smoke the pork loin until handsomely browned and cooked through (the internal temperature will be about 155 degrees), about 1½ hours. Add wood chips (about 1½ cups) or chunks (1 large or 2 medium) per hour to the embers to maintain a constant flow of smoke.
- Step 10
While the pork cooks, make the glaze: Place the orange juice, Cognac, brown sugar, marmalade, cinnamon and cloves in a nonreactive saucepan. Boil over high heat until syrupy and reduced by half, 10 to 15 minutes.
- Step 11
In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and Cointreau, then carefully whisk the slurry into the glaze. Boil for 1 minute. The glaze will thicken. Whisk in the butter, and season with salt and pepper to taste. (Makes about 1¼ cups.)
- Step 12
Brush the glaze on the pork three times during the last 20 minutes of cooking. Reserve the remaining glaze.
- Step 13
When the pork is done, transfer to a platter and let rest for 5 minutes. To serve, thinly slice the pork loin across the grain and serve with the remaining glaze on the side.
- Prague powder #1, also called pink curing salt, contains 6.25 percent sodium nitrite, a natural preservative that gives ham (and corned beef, pastrami and bacon) its rosy pink color and umami flavor. It also has powerful antibacterial properties. See accompanying story for more info.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
Nitrites alter BOTH meat color (myoglobin => nitrosomyoglobin) and flavor (increased umami). That's why corned beef/pastrami tastes different from uncured smoked brisket. You're right that you don't HAVE to use nitrite, as long as you eat the meat right away, but the end-product will taste different.
If you are cooking the pork loin to 155 why do you need the so-called Prague powder? It's not like you are dry curing a ham to make proscuitto, which is sliced and eaten without ever being cooked. Can the saltiness not come from regular salt? Or is it about the coloration of the meat?
Doubled the brine recipe, cut a whole loin in half to fit a 2gal zipper bag (and my smoker), skipped the injections but brined for 4 days. My electric smoker only reaches 275…I went 90 minutes in hickory smoke then 30 in a 350 oven. Also: the thick end of the loin had lots of excess fat cap, so I trimmed it back and laid it in strips over the skinny end, which had barely any fat cap. Before glazing I pulled them and chopped them into baked beans. Everything was delicious!
I'm wondering if internal 150-155f might be a touch over cooked? I've never had pork loin roasts very tender & moist unless cooked only to 145f internal temp. This weekend in my cold smoker (Little Chief) I smoked 7 lbs loin (2 pieces) 2.5 hours plus another half hour no smoke. Interior temp was 140f. I took several 1/4" slices from one end. Meat is moist but noticably resistant to slice and nearly tough to chew. As a guess would anyone say that worst mistake was not getting temp higher?
This sounds delicious. BUT... am I missing something? Does this really start with 2 quarts of brine? Why bother putting it in a bag or injecting it when you can submerge it along with a few more pounds of other meat. I'm only on day 1 so I'll come back.
I did a version of this (different brine) this morning before I came across this recipe. I cooked it in my Big Green Egg at 225 degrees. It took about three hours to get to 155 degrees. I didn’t inject the brine, but will try it next time. I also didn’t have a glaze, but it’s a great idea, and will try that too. However, if it is cooked at 225, the heat should probably be raised to, say, 300 or so once the loin hits about 140 so the glaze will properly caramelize. Do this. It’s excellent.
Excellent recipe: my inexperience with my kettle bbq caused a delay but consultation with more experienced son produced a wonderful piece of pork. I also brined and smoked pork belly which I intend to use for bacon. The small boneless roasts didn't require second injection. Well worth the investment in pink chemical and injector.
Wonderful two-person "ham" for Easter dinner! I made some modification, but nothing that affected the flavor much, I think: 1. I used a two-pound pork sirloin roast. It's what I had on hand. 2. I brined for an extra day but didn't inject the brine since I don't have a basting syringe. The pink coloration penetrated to the center of the roast, so I think it managed to cure without injecting. 3. I used rum instead of cognac and Cointreau in the glaze--again, what I had on hand.
3 lbs. pork loin made 2 lbs. ham.
Turned out really nice! It took 2 1/2 hours to smoke the meat and get it to 155*. The meat still has a texture more like pork roast than ham, but it taste like great ham. I will definitely do this again!
I’d like to smoke this in my Big Green Egg. Any ideas about temperature and timing? I’m not yet really proficient or comfortable with the cooker.
Can someone clarify step 5? Why take the pork out of the brine to simply put it back in the brine?
Because you are going to re-inject the pork with the brine left in the bag. Take pork out of the bag and pour the brine into a measuring cup. Try to inject about 1/2 cup of the brine into the pork (awkward and messy to inject the pork while it's still in the bag). At this point you can start the drying and smoking process...if so, discard the rest of the brine. Or, you can brine for another 24 hours...if so, put the pork and the remaining brine back in the bag.
If I have a whole loin which part should I use for the ham?
The ham is from a different part of the pig--the hind leg. Perhaps "ham" should be in quotes since it's not really a ham but rather the preparation reflects a ham.
Is there any way to smoke the ham with a gas grill?
That's what I intend to do - probably horrifies the hard core smokers -but we have a smoker box that we put on the heat in our large gas grill, plug the rotisserie gaps on either side to keep the smoke in, and place our chosen meat (chicken wings are another favourite) for indirect heat.
If you are cooking the pork loin to 155 why do you need the so-called Prague powder? It's not like you are dry curing a ham to make proscuitto, which is sliced and eaten without ever being cooked. Can the saltiness not come from regular salt? Or is it about the coloration of the meat?
Nitrites alter BOTH meat color (myoglobin => nitrosomyoglobin) and flavor (increased umami). That's why corned beef/pastrami tastes different from uncured smoked brisket. You're right that you don't HAVE to use nitrite, as long as you eat the meat right away, but the end-product will taste different.
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