This recipe can be adopted for just about any of your favorite meats. Including, fish, beef, chicken and shrimp. I’ve never tested it on lamb, since I just can’t stand the flavor of lamb on the grill, as well as the tough texture. I was never a big lover of jerk in the past, but it’s not only becoming a fav for me, Tehya and Indy just loves the mouth watering “kick” you get from a good piece of jerk just off the grill. The key to me falling in love with jerk pork, must be credited to two things. 1 – how fast and simple this is to prepare. and 2 – how moist the finished product is the way I marinate the meat. I’m sure you know how dry pork can get when you don’t grill it properly… good pork on the grill usually requires a lot of patience, basting and time to slow cook. Beside the time to marinate, this one is super fast!

A three ingredient recipe? Let’s get cooking!

You’ll need…

- 3 pork chops

- 3-4 tablespoon “Grace” jerk marinade.

- 1/2 lime or lemon for washing the pork.

Remove the pork and wash with water and the lime or lemon juice. You can also use about 2 tablespoons of vinegar if you wish. It’s important that you take a paper towel and dry off the water from washing. Then take a fork and pierce the pork through on both sides.. about 6 times each.

With the pork pierced, we can add the jerk marinade. Be sure to mix everything well, so it’s all coated. The piercing will allow the marinade to work it’s way through the meat while it marinates. This is the key to not ending up with a dry cardboard-like finished product. Now cover and let marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hr. If you’re in a rush – let marinate for about 10 minutes or so.

Get the grill ready by reaching a temp of about 400 F or so. If your grill is famous for sticking, you can spray some cooking spray (pam) or brush the grill with some oil.

Cover the grill and let cook about 8-10 minutes on each side. Don’t worry, with the technique we used for marinating, the meat will NOT dry out. Be sure to flip over to cook both sides and keep an eye out for flare-ups!

That’s it, you’re done! Enjoy with a nice side of salad and rice.. or whatever you feel like eating. Works great with potato or pasta salad as well.

BONUS!

How to get perfect grill marks

Place your pork directly onto a hot grill for a few minutes. Then using tongs or a spatula give your steak a quarter turn to create the second set of marks, resulting in a crisscross pattern. When it’s time to flip the steak, repeat the process of grilling for a few minutes and then give it a quarter turn.

Some grill masters claim that lightly brushing the grill with olive oil results in nice dark marks. You may need to practice a few times before mastering the art of presentation, but the good news—even the pork with not-so-perfect grill marks will still taste great.

Growing up our dad was always at work (well at the time it seemed that way). But Sundays was our day. In the dry season he’d take me and my brother on long hikes through abandoned cacao and coffee estates to hunt and search out ground provisions. He was a master at finding yams of all description, size and shape. Not that stuff you find in the grocery store in North America. Yams with names like, “juba”, ‘finger” and “kush kush” and I can still remember the joy when we found a “patch”.

We’d leave early on a Sunday morning and be back in time for my mom to prepare lunch with the yam, dasheen and eddoes we found during our trek. So part of our Sunday lunch usually included ground provision and stew pork along with all the other dishes that a Sunday lunch is so famous for in Trinidad and Tobago. Yam connoisseurs would argue that nothing beats pairing yam with fried tomato and salt fish (salted cod), but I assure you.. stew pork is the way to go. But you don’t need yams or ground provisions to enjoy the amazing flavor of stew pork.

The principle and ingredients are very much the same as we explored with the “Stew Chicken” recipe a while back, except in this case we’re using pork.

You’ll need…

3lbs pork – cubed into 3/4 inch pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup
2 cloves of garlic – thinly sliced or crushed
1 teaspoon fresh or bottled ginger – sliced. (use 1/2 if it’s ginger powder)
2 tablespoon vegetable oil (one that can withstand high heat)
1 medium onion – chopped
1 medium tomato – chopped
2 tablespoon cilantro (or 2 tbs Trinidad green meat seasoning)
1 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
3 cups water
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 hot pepper (only if you like your food spicy)
1 green onion or chive – chopped
2 sprigs of fresh thyme (1 teaspoon dried)
1 lime or lemon or 3 tablespoons of vinegar
1 small shallot

Prepare the seasoning mix by dicing the onion, pepper, ginger, green onion, garlic, cilantro, shallot and tomato.

Now lets prepare the pork. Feel free to ask your butcher to do this step for you. Cut the pork into 3/4 inch pieces, removing the majority of fat and skin. One of the reasons why Caribbean dishes are known as being heavy, is our love for fat and skin. In days gone by I’d keep some of that fatty pieces of meat and skin. With age comes wisdom, so we know that this is to be avoided.

Wash… squeeze the lime or vinegar onto the cubed pork and rinse with water.

After you’ve washed the cubed meat, squeeze any remaining water from the bowl and begin to season. Add everything except the oil, sugar and 3 cups of water. Mix well and let marinate for about 2 hrs in the fridge – covered.

Time to get cooking. In a heavy bottom pot add the oil over high heat. As the oil starts to smoke or move along freely in the pot add the sugar. With a long handle spoon (to avoid splatters onto your hand) move the sugar around. You’re looking for the sugar to melt, change color and get to the point when it’s ready to caramelize.

Quickly start adding the seasoned pork as the sugar starts looking like the picture above. Stir around to evenly coat all the pieces of meat. Then lower the heat and simmer covered for about 10-15 minutes.

Now uncover the pot and raise the heat to high. We’re trying to get rid of all the natural juices that formed while it was simmering. In the meantime, add the 3 cups of water to the bowl that had the seasoned pork. We’re trying to pick up any bits of seasonings that were left behind.

As soon as all the liquid is gone and all the pieces of pork is evenly browned, add the 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat, cover and let simmer for about 40-45 minutes. We’d like to get a nice thick gravy and have the pieces of pork as tender as possible. If after the 45 minutes you have too much liquid, be sure to turn up the heat and let some burn off.

Questions? Leave me a comment below or use the contact link at the top of this page. I’d love to hear from you.

This day I didn’t have any yams, but I did enjoy a nice plate of brown rice with this exciting way of preparing pork.