The time has come to welcome our backyard patio into its delightful role as dining room. Entertaining outdoors, with smoky smells wafting from the grill, reduces the anxiety of more formal situations. Friends, sparkling aperitif in hand, relax easily into conversation around the grill.
The menu needs to reflect the chill atmosphere. Steaks or chops have their place, but larger cuts prove easier to get right. And ounce for ounce, a roast can be substantially less expensive. Beef chuck roasts and pork shoulder roasts turn tender with a low and slow, many hours-long approach.
Quicker cooking rack of pork makes an impressive dinner for friends in less than two hours. This cut, essentially seven or eight pork loin chops in one roast, offers lean moist meat and juicy bits at the bone. For the prettiest appearance, ask your butcher to trim the rib bones, also known as “Frenching,” so the bones look crusty brown after cooking.
Before grilling, insert skinny slivers of fresh garlic into the thickest portions of the meat. This trick infuses garlic flavor deep into the meat. A simple rub of salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and grated fresh lemon, applied to the roast at least an hour in advance of cooking, seasons the exterior layers.
Set up the grill to mimic an oven. In other words, no heat directly under the meat. If you use a gas grill, simply preheat it, then turn off the burners that are under the meat, leaving the other burners on medium. For charcoal grills, preheat the coals in a chimney starter. When the coals are covered in gray ash and glowing red, carefully arrange them on two sides of the grill, leaving the center of the grill empty. I put a foil drip pan on the bottom of the grill to catch drips. A few soaked and drained wood chips, added to the coals or set over the gas burners, add a touch of smoke to the meat.
To serve the pork roast, use a very sharp knife to slice between the bones into chops. A generous spoonful of a fresh, herb-based blender sauce, aka Italian salsa verde, gilds the barely pink, moist meat.
A package of assorted mushrooms along with a large sweet onion, inspires a side dish to the pork. A spoonful of cheesy quick-cooking polenta, or browned polenta slices made from packaged premade polenta, keeps the cooking casual.
As for those grill-time aperitifs, a tumblerful of sparkling water with a splash of brilliant red, thirst-quenching Campari does the trick.
Grilled Lemon-Herb Rack of Pork With Salsa Verde
Makes 6 to 8 servings
- 1 rack of pork, 7 or 8 ribs, about 6 pounds total
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1 lemon
- 3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- Coarse (kosher) salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- A handful of soaked applewood or mesquite chips, drained
- 1 cup flat Italian parsley leaves
- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup chopped pitted green olives
- 2 tablespoons drained capers
- Flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
Pat roast dry and place meaty side down on a baking pan. Cut 4 cloves of the garlic into thin slivers. Use the tip of a sharp knife to make a small slit in the pork and insert a sliver of garlic. Repeat to insert the slivers of garlic in evenly spaced spots over the pork.
Grate the rind from the lemon into a small bowl. Stir in 3 tablespoons of the Italian seasoning, 1 teaspoon coarse salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Coat the roast on all sides with the rub. Lightly cover the pork with waxed paper. Refrigerate at least one hour or up to two days.
Prepare a charcoal grill or preheat a gas grill to medium-hot. For indirect cooking, arrange coals on two sides of the grill or turn off burners in center of gas grill. Place the cooking grate in place and let it heat a few minutes.
Put the pork roast in the center of the grill (not directly over the heat). Add a small handful of the wood chips to the coals. (For gas grilling, wrap the soaked chips in a foil pouch and place directly over the heat source.) Cover the grill and cook on medium (about 350 degrees F if you have an oven thermometer), rotating roast for even browning, until a thermometer registers 145 degrees F, about 1 1/2 hours.
Meanwhile, for the salsa verde, put remaining 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning in blender. Add remaining 2 cloves garlic, juice squeezed from the lemon, parsley, oil, olives, capers, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Blend with on/off turns until coarsely pureed. Taste and season again with salt. Use at room temperature. (Mixture will keep two or three days in the refrigerator.)
Let pork rest on cutting board about 20 minutes. Slice between the rib bones. Serve with salsa verde. Garnish with parsley.
Variation: Cook the roast in a baking pan in a preheated 350-degree-F oven.
Sautéed Mushrooms and Onions
Makes 6 servings
- 1 pound assorted mushrooms, such as oyster, maitake, trumpet, cremini, button
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large sweet onion, cut in half, thinly sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 or 3 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh parsley
Wipe mushrooms clean and trim stems. Cut mushrooms into 1/2-inch thick slices.
Heat oil in large nonstick skillet. Add onion. Cook and stir until soft and golden, about 10 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute. Stir in mushrooms. Cook and stir until mushrooms are golden and tender, about 8 minutes.
Remove from heat. Stir in parsley.
