X-MAS Crown Roast & Dinner Rolls on the Egg

jfm0830

I have had next to no time to devote to grilling and have been missing my Eggs. For Christmas I decided to try something interesting. I've seen it before around this time of year, but never made or tried it.  The inspiration was Cooks Illustrated Holiday Entertaining 2013, which had the Crown Roast of Pork Recipe. The picture on the cover of the magazine is what sold me. The other item I was going to make this day was Best American Dinner Rolls another Cook's Illustrated recipe from their website. One issue I had to deal with was the temperature change called for in the recipe. You start cooking the roast bones down at 475 and flip it and finish it at 300. I knew a stabilized Egg wasn't going to shed 175 degrees any time soon. So I originally planned to fire up my second Egg and get it to 300 degrees to finish off the roast. When I added the rolls to the bill of fare, I started them early enough I could drop the second Egg down from 400 to 300. 

Cutting to the chase this recipe was a mixed bag technically for me and a rousing success for my guests. The technical issues were a bit puzzling. Although the temps were right on, the shallots were a bit on the toasty side and the gravy drippings had pretty much burned off when the roast was done. It turns out the pork was juicy enough that no one wanted the back up pork gravy I made. The dinner rolls lived up to their name and although I had a big batch, there were none left. The pork was out of this world: Moist and juicy, flavorful, tender and I liked the flavor from the Jack Daniel's oak chips I used to give it some light smoke exposure. The rub used to flavor the roast was also used on the red potatoes and shallots and all of the flavors were nicely complimentary. At first I was worried I was going to have too much leftover roast, but it turned out people were "fighting" over the leftovers. Everyone took some home and I was left with none. That was a nice feeling and I didn't mind the fact I was left empty-handed because I knew everyone enjoyed their Christmas dinner. 

SUNDAY-12-22-13:

The dinner roll dough had a relatively simple dough recipe with a slightly involved series of prep steps. The dough used all-purpose flour, sugar, table salt, milk, eggs, butter and instant yeast. 

The finished dough after some quality time in the stand mixer and a couple minutes of hand kneading. It now goes into a dough doubling pail for a 3 hour rise. The second picture is 3 hours later when the dough has risen.

The dough is pressed out into a 10"x12" rectangle.

The dough is rolled into a log and then gets cut into 16 equal pieces.

The dough is formed into balls and put into two 9" cake pans. The cake pans get covered with plastic wrap and then foil (not shown) and go into the fridge for 48 hours.

MONDAY EVENING-12-23-13:

Here is how the roast came from the butcher: wrapped in plastic wrap and set on a garnish in a big plastic party plater container.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON-12-24-13:

The roast is out of its original wrappers and containers and has been patted dry and is ready to rub,

The rub used chopped fresh thyme & rosemary, minced garlic, kosher salt & black pepper.

The roast is rubbed on all sides and then is wrapped with plastic wrap and is returned to the fridge for 24 hours.

WEDNESDAY MORNING (Christmas)-12-25-13:

24 hours have passed and the roast is back out on the counter where it will remain for an hour while I light both Eggs. The one for the roast is brought to 475 degrees and the one for the rolls is brought to 400 degrees.

The rolls were pulled out of the fridge 7 hours earlier at midnight and allowed to rise at room temperature. The foil was removed but the plastic wrap remains. The rolls are ready to head out to the Egg.

Christmas dawned clear and calm but cold. The temps were in the single digits and had warmed into the low teens at this point. The white rectangle on the countertop is a sheet of white Corian to help protect the granite counter top if I need to land the hot roast pan on the counter. I use this for my AR too.

The red potatoes have been washed and the shallots were peeled & halved.

The potatoes and shallots were added to a large bowl together with two peeled and halved apples, 1/2 stick of butter and some reserved rub. Everything was tossed to mix,

The seasoned veggies were added to a roast pan together with a v-rack.

The roast is in the roast pan and v-rack bones down and will cook for 60-90 minutes until an internal temperature of 110 is reached. The setup is platesetter legs down and some 1/2" copper plumbing T shims. This was a very tight fit. I had to shorten the dome thermo stem length.

Meanwhile the second Egg was at 400 degrees and it was time to add one pan of dinner rolls. The plate setter is installed legs down and the cake pan is sitting on 1/2 copper plumbing T 's serving as shims.

The rolls were done after 12 minutes. The second pan went on and when they were done I started dialing this Egg down to 300 degrees to finish the roast.

The roast has reached an internal temperature of 110 degrees and gets flipped to bones up to finish. I flipped it on the 475 degree Egg so I didn't lose to much temperature on the 300 degree Egg.

The roast gets pulled and is tented in foil and rests for 30 minutes. At this point I was supposed to remove the veggies from the pan and make gravy, but there were not enough drippings to do this. I heated some jarred pork gravy, but the meat was so moist that nobody wanted gravy. 

Time to eat!!

hapster

Wow!!!

Looks  like an awesome meal for you and your guests...

Your posts are a gift

EggoMatic

I love your post! Looks like your family enjoyed the way you put it all together. Nice!

MJG

Wow. Nicely done, Sir.

Austin Egghead

Bravo!!! Well done sir. Another CI recipe improved by the egg.

DMW

Impressive, great detail on the post.

ArlingtonGrill

That is very impressive. A lot of work, but then again, when doing something enjoyable it doesn't seem like a lot of work.

freduc2

I absolutely love your posts.

CPARKTX

Wow!! Now that is a cook!

jfm0830

Thanks for looking and for all the kind remarks.

@ArilingtonGrill That is the nice thing about this recipe-it is really relatively easy. The butcher has done the stuff that is hard. You rub the roast with a simple rub and brush it with butter, then cook. Your veggies come along for the ride. This is about the most low-key Christmas dinner I remember making. But it really does look like a million bucks in addition to tasting great.

Jim

henapple

I may have missed it. ..what was the final temperature? Best cook I've seen in a while.

Black_Badger

Beauty! Bookmarked. Thank you!

B_B

Solson005

Great post as always. This has always been on my list but after this post it has defiantly moved up towards the top!  =D>

brianwdmn

A work of art. Wow! Thanks for sharing.

jfm0830

henapple said:

I may have missed it. ..what was the final temperature? Best cook I've seen in a while.

You didn't miss it, I forgot to mention it. 140 degrees internal.

SoCal_Griller

Amazing cook.  That looks really good!

tybeelucy2

Unreal! Great job, thanks for sharing.

U_tarded

Wow as soon as I saw your post I knew I had to look. You never let me down.

pasoegg

now that will drag the slaw off your hot dog....that is the BOMB!!!  I am speechless....

R2Egg2Q

Great looking cook as usual Jim! I like the upside down approach as it looks to help with keeping the bones from getting too dark and likely helps the meatier part cook a little faster. I've done the right side up approach before and needed to foil the bones.

jfm0830

When the folks at CI started experimenting with this recipe, they had trouble with uneven cooking. The middle of the roast would not cook up as fast as the outer edges. They ended up with an unevenly cooked, dry near the outside, undercooked on the inside result. They did two things to fix this problem. First they didn't put any stuffing in the roast and instead placed it in the bottom of the pan. Secondly they tried cooking the roast bones down first which gave them better circulation under and up through the middle of the roast. This helps speed up the cooking time and gave the more even results.

Jim