Planked Pork Chops with a Balsamic Maple Reduction

Planked Pork Chops with a Balsamic Maple Reduction. Wait, you can’t plank pork chops. You can only plank salmon. Bull shoes. My New Year’s Resolution is not some life changing decision to lose weight or stop cussing or giving a shit if anyone named Kardasian bursts into flames and dies a painful death. No, mine is to do more plank grilling. 

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But you can only eat so much salmon, right? Well, no, I can eat my weight in salmon. The reason I plan on doing more plank grilling is two fold. First, I find myself using my gas grill more and more. Why? I have three kids, a wife, a job, a house and I run this silly website. I’m busy. Like mad busy. The convenience of the gas grill has me using it more and more and more. My one and only knock on my gas grill is no smoke flavor. Enter the grilling plank! Now I get my convenience along with the smoke I crave. WINNING!

But aren’t you going to get bored with salmon? No, I won’t get bored with salmon ever. And no, I don’t have to plank salmon every time I bust out a grilling plank. Once, I planked squid. Another time I planked steak! Today, I’m going to plank some fat pork chops and glaze them with a balsamic, maple reduction sauce.

Who was the jackass that came up with the idea that we can only plank salmon? Why only impart those sweet, seductive smoke curls into fish when we could be pairing that smoke with beef or pork or turkey or lamb, or well, anything. The possibilities are really endless. And it’s not just me. Dad planked scallops once. 

We can plank anything. For some reason we only plank salmon. That needs to change. And it starts right here with these planked pork chops. 

Planked Pork Chops with a Balsamic Maple Reduction Ingredients:

• 2 pork chops, approximately 1.5 inches thick
• Coarse salt
• Black pepper
• White pepper
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp syrup
• 1/3 cup chicken (beef or mushroom) stock
• 1 tsp stone ground mustard
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ¼ tsp dried thyme
• ¼ tsp dried rosemary
• ½ tsp of Sriracha for some heat (not pictured as I decided to add that at the last minute)
• 2 tbsp butter

If you want to omit the Sriracha, feel free. After all there’s a shortage. Yeah, I believe that’s a bunch of crap too, but I love the sauce. If you want to omit the heat from the Sriracha that’s up to you.

First, let’s get a shot of the stars of the show – the pork chops:

Those bad boys are an inch and a half thick, so none of those little wimpy chops in the value pack at the grocery store you need at least 4 of to fill you up. 

To get an idea of how monstrous these bad boys are, check out the bone to bone overhead shot of these to monsters filling a dinner plate:

So hit them with the coarse salt, black and white pepper on both sides:

Now that the meat is prepared, toss a wooden grilling plank into the sink and fill it with a couple inches of water. In this case, it was a maple plank. Sorry no picture. I was pressed for time and forgot to get a shot. But a piece of wood in a sink full of water is not hard to imagine. You’ll survive.

How to Grill Planked Pork Chops with a Balsamic Maple Reduction

While the salt and pepper are working their magic on the pork chops and the plank is soaking up water to keep it from bursting into flames on the grill, let’s prepare the balsamic maple reduction. Combine the rest of the ingredients except for the butter in a pot, give a good whisk and set to a low simmer. Once the liquid reduces by about half, toss in the butter:

After the plank has soaked in liquid for about an hour, prep the grill for high heat grilling.

Warm the Plank

In this case a gas grill, but a charcoal grill would work too, and then place the plank on the grill:

Close the lid for about three minutes.

Then open the lid and flip the plank over:

Plank the Chops

Now we’re ready for those glorious pork chops!

Close the lid and drop the temp down to between medium and medium high.

The goal is to get smoke without the plank bursting into flames. Despite the water treatment that can still happen. 

Here we are about 20 minutes in.

The planked pork chops are browning nicely and the plank is putting off some decent smoke. Considering the wind outside that night, getting smoke shots was tough:

Baste the Planked Pork Chops

At 30 minutes, my pork chops are sitting about 110 degrees, so I brushed them with balsamic maple reduction:

And finally the wind died down and I was able to get this smoky shot after they were both brushed with the reduction:

I brushed them twice more, about 10 minutes apart, before my ThermaPen showed me that they were ready to come off at an internal temperature of 148:

But wait. Pork needs to be cooked to 160 or greater, right?

Nope. Pork is good to go after it reaches 145 according to the USDA. Leave a little pink in your pork and stop freaking out you Nancies.

And yes, my ThermaPen is resting on a hot grill grate. It got a little melted there on the edge, or as I like to call it, broken in!

That’s what happens when you have to document everything with a DSLR camera (which requires two hands) and no hand for the thermometer.

Planked pork chops plated:

I pulled them from the plank, and the grill, and placed them on a plate to rest to allow the juices, in an excited state from the heat of the grill, to calm down and redistribute throughout the meat and not run all over the plate when sliced.

Planked Pork Chops Recap:

The chops picked up a nice smoke flavor before I applied the sauce, which caramelized nicely on the pork. The meat was perfectly tender and uber juicy and that sweet and savory (and slightly spicy) glaze made these pork chops almost elegant. Expect a wide variety of flavors intermingling in the mouth.

I highly recommend busting out the wooden grilling plank to add that wonderful smoke to any protein. It also adds the one thing the gas grill is missing – smoke.

If you’re wondering about the T and Thomas behind some of these pictures, that’s my new cutting board from my Mother in Law. It will be soon festooned to the wall somewhere in my kitchen because it is too pretty to cut on.

Now, if you want more plank recipes, check out my planked beef tenderloin (ideal for Christmas).

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This article was initially published on: February 13, 2014