Mesquite smoked ribeye pork chops

[Mike Stafford]

The wife is out of town until Wednesday so I have to fend for myself. I buy what I want without being chastised.

At the store I found a couple of packages labeled "Boneless mesquite smoked ribeye pork chops". The package weighed a pound and was on sale for $1.99 down from the usual prices of $3.99. There were two one inch thick chops in the package.

I cooked them in my trusty cast iron frying pan which I let get smoking hot. I lubricated the pan with a little bacon grease and plopped the chops in the pan. I let them get a good sear and then turned them over. When the second side was seared I started searing the sides a little.

I cut back on the heat and covered the pan to let the chops get good and hot. When the meat was quite firm I called them done.

When I cut into the chop it was nice and juicy but fully cooked but it needed salt. The mesquite flavor was barely noticeable. We have been spoiled by some turkey cold cuts we buy that is mesquite smoked. It is very delicious. The chops were no better or no worse than a normal thick pork chop. With salt they were quite good but I wouldn't buy them again unless they were on sale. I packaged one up in a ziplock for tomorrow's lunch.

 

[Darren Wright]

Sounds like a good meal. I’ve been craving a flatiron steak, but have to wait for my wife to go out of town again. Steak is wasted on my wife, as she likes hers the consistency of a charcoal briquette.

 

[Mike Stafford]

Sounds like a good meal. I’ve been craving a flatiron steak, but have to wait for my wife to go out of town again. Steak is wasted on my wife, as she likes hers the consistency of a charcoal briquette.

I am not sure what I expected. I have never really had any food that I knew for certain had been professionally smoked over mesquite. As I said, the turkey my wife buys is mesquite smoked and we love it. But I wonder if the delicate flavor of the turkey itself allows the mesquite flavor to be more obvious.

The pork chop was quite good but I don't know that the mesquite flavor was particularly obvious. Not being much of an expert on smoked foods I don't know what to expect with respect to flavor on such things. There used to be a restaurant in town that used mesquite to cook steaks. They literally had big fireplace into which they piled up short mesquite limb sections and cooked the steak on a grill over the open fire. Those steaks were delicious but I don't remember them having a particularly strong smoked flavor.