Chile Pork Roll

Some of you might remember that I've been playing around with what I called Popper Stuffed Pork Loin. So far, I haven't managed to produce a version of it that I felt was totally successful. After more thought about it, I decided that having the peppers cut up might be part of the problem. Why not use peppers that are more intact and fill them with the stuffing and then roll them into the pork?

It turns out that this is going to be the route that will work. I still have a few execution issues to work out, but today's first effort with this approach worked really well and needs only a couple of tweaks to be perfect.

I had been wanting to call this Relleno Roulade, but my poor knife skills and the size of the stuffed peppers meant that the meat didn't roll into multiple layers. It just made one large filled roll (but worked in that configuration, remarkably) so the better description is chile pork roll.

Chile Pork Roll

Ingredients

Boneless pork loin (I used a 5.4 pound portion)

Six large green or red chile, roasted, peeled and seeded (I used Lemitar)

Kosher salt for dry brining (1/2 tsp per pound of meat)

Pork rub (I used Hanks KC Royale)

Stuffing:

2 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 pound bacon fried and diced into very small bits
3 green onions, chopped (tops only)

Also needed: butcher's twine

Method

I opened the meat up as well as I could but hindsight tells me I still went too thick with it even though I also put it between a couple of layers of parchment paper and tried to flatten it further with a rolling pin.

Before cutting, you can see it was pretty rough on the outside (purchased at Sams):

Outside after opening:

But the inside looked nicer, so I decided that I would roll it inside out for cooking:

I dry brined it about two and a half hours before stuffing and rolling it.

Near the end of the dry brining time, I mixed the stuffing in a medium bowl. I also removed the seeds from the chile after splitting them down one side. Here is the stuffing mixture and chile ready to stuff:

And the stuffed chile, rolled up:

In retrospect, this probably would work better with only half the amount of stuffing.

I dusted the pork with Hank's KC Royale on both sides and rolled the chile and small amount of leftover stuffing (distributed in small bits between chile) and then attempted to roll it up. The stuffed chile were probably too fat and the pork loin probably wasn't cut thin enough, so a normal "roulade" sort of roll wasn't possible. I tied it up anyway and forged ahead.

I put it back into the refrigerator for another couple of hours for the cream cheese to harden some.

I grilled the stuffed loin on my Kamado with direct heat over natural lump charcoal and a couple of chunks of cherry wood. The cook was at 350 to an internal temperature of 140.

I let it rest about ten minutes before slicing to let the cheese cool down a bit.

Much to my surprise, much of the stuffing stayed put when the loin was sliced open:

The pork came out incredibly moist with a great crusty bark. The chile flavor was out of this world with the stuffing. I would class this particular batch of chile as medium. Just the right level of heat.

We ate well tonight.

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