Pork Loin Roulade (a slight return) With Pix O'Plenty

Fred19Flintstone

I took a pound of stacked bacon, added some fresh cracked black pepper and cooked it in the Egg with apple wood smoke.

 

Let it cook and had the whole neighborhood smelling GOOOOOOOD!  My first beer since early January.  Detroit Lions edition Bud Light!  Dr. Atkins would not approve.

Meanwhile, I took the pork loin I moved from the deep freeze to the fridge yesterday...

And doing some serious hacking (butcher shop amatuer hour), I butterflied the loin.

 

The filling was mozzerella cheese, roasted red peppers (from a jar), bacon and baby spinach.  The inside and the outside got some Dizzy Dust.

 

I rolled while Wilma stabbed the beast.  I neglected to buy string again so we are left with the skewer toothpick method.  I gotta admit I kinda like it.  Also I was never a Boy Scout and so I know little about tying knots.  When I was a kid, I was a proud member of the politically incorrect Indian Guides.

 

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Tjcoley

Looks great so far - can't wait to see the finished cook/

bud812

Is it done yet-- is it done yet????  Lookin good.

Fred19Flintstone

 I AM A DOOFUS!  I spent what seemed like 30 - 40 minutes starting this thread instead of paying attention to the cook!  It must have been longer, I don't know.  After I left the computer I checked the roast and it was at 170.  Overcooked!  Damn!  Still flavorful, just dry.  Failure due to stupidity.  Lesson learned the hard way!

Owossoegger

Still looks good!

SmokinDAWG82

30-40 minutes seems like a short cook, looks great but at 170 I imagine it was a little dry. What temp were you at?

r270ba

Man I think we have all been there...sucks but it happens.  Still looks great!

Fred19Flintstone

@SmokinDAWG82 - The Egg stabilized at 370.  The 30-40 minutes I spoke of is what it seemed like to me.  I didn't look at the clock (mistake) and I'm thinking I was messing with this computer for longer than I thought.  I have to learn to hard way sometimes.  From now on I will cook first and post later.

Tjcoley

Still looks good Fred.  Did my first cook with a Maverick today and don't know how I lived without it before.  The alarm when temp was reached was great.  Was able to get distracted and not have to worry about it.  

Solson005

It does look great. I need to try stuffing some pork sometime soon. 

SkinnyV

I see lots of leftovers, looks very filling. Good work.

nolaegghead

Could have been worse....dunno if you've seen the pic of Mickey's wings.  They look like Spock after the radiation bombardment in Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan - namely, charcoal like Pompeii outlines of chikken wangs.

Foghorn

Fred, we set pretty high standards for ourselves, but I bet those who ate it thought it was excellent.

 

What you actually did was set yourself up for success going forward because now you know you can do it even better.  I have a couple of recipes where I got really lucky the first time and they came out perfect - and I have been unsuccessfully trying to recreate that perfection ever since... leading to disappointment every time.

jfm0830

I've said many times that we often learn more from our mistakes, than we do from our successes. That roast still looked quite good and certainly wasn't a total loss. The direction your post took actually surprised me. When I saw all that bacon I figured it was going to get wrapped around the outside of the roast and not put on the inside.

One thing I was thinking was that some the dryness may have been caused by not having that roast completely sealed back up when you rolled it. This exposed some of the meats interior surface to direct heat . Nothing wrong with using the pins, but I'll bet it would've been a less dry if the roast had been sealed up tight. 

As for the butcher's slipknot, perhaps this will help:

Tying a Butcher's Slip Knot

What I like about them is once you learn how to do it, they are so easy and the fact they will only tighten but never loosen come in handy.

Fred19Flintstone

@Foghorn - Those that ate it also thought it was dry.  Wilma is a pretty good judge and is very diplomatic about it.  Teenagers, however, are brutal critics.

@jfm0830 - Jim, I was thinking about where I went wrong.  To me, the roast cooked way faster than I expected.  I came to the conclusion that you hit upon.  My toothpick skewer method left the roast too loose and heat penetrated it and cooked it like it was a small stack of pork chops rather than a tight roast.  Time to bone up on those knots and tie the next roulade.  Thanks for the link!