Pork Loin Roast -- the beginning of something great!

Anova Precision® Cooker Brag Board
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One butcher-tied Pork Loin Roast (approximately 7-8 pounds, do not untie)
Favorite Rub or Season with Salt, Pepper, and Granulated Garlic (not garlic powder), or your choice of spices (you can also add a dusting of Smoked Paprika for color and a hint of smokey flavor)

Prepare a vacuum bag
Thoroughly season all surfaces (including the two ends) of the tied roast with rub or spices
Place in vacuum bag and seal for Sous Vide.

Immerse in 142F-145F water bath for four hours.
Remove from vacuum bag, pat dry, and thoroughly sear the exterior of the roast.

After searing well, remove the ties. You will have two tender, juicy portions of pork loin.

Pork loin done this way is incredibly tender and versatile. From here, you can do a number of different things. Simply slice and serve, with your choice of sauce or a bacon jam. Thinly slice and pile high on your favorite bread or roll for a hot (or cold) sandwich. Or cut into fine dice or chop for “carnitas” tacos – seasoning with added spices to taste (particularly cumin, Mexican oregano, and onion powder, or Goya Sazon). Or cut into large dice for tossing with your favorite pasta and a cream or garlic butter sauce… There is no limit to what you can do with this.

For “carnitas street tacos” . . . try this Mango-Kiwi Salsa:

1 whole ripe mango, peeled, seed removed and chopped fine (don’t discard any of the juice you’ll get)
1 whole kiwi (green or gold), peeled and chopped fine
1/2 to 1 jalapeno chile, seeded and chopped fine (be sure to wear gloves and don’t touch your face, eyes, nose, or mouth!)
1/2 small sweet onion (Maui, Vidalia, Walla Walla, 1015, etc), chopped fine
1/4 to 1/2 cup commercial red salsa (La Victoria, Pace, etc)
finely chopped cilantro (optional)

Mix all ingredients and spoon over tacos. Drizzle tacos with Mexican Crema. For authentic “crunch” add finely shredded fresh cabbage over taco meat (and under salsa and crema).

(I’ve tried to post this with photos in the actual Recipe section on the website, but it won’t let me in)

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What is the thickness of your rolled pork loin? 4 hours is hardly enough time to see it heated to water bath temp in the centre.

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Is their a difference in granulated garlic and garlic powder ? Or do you mean to say, “Not garlic salt” ?

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Granulated garlic is more like salt or pepper in that it is a larger granule. Garlic powder is competely pulverized and difficult to cotrol – it is literally garlic “dust”. It also cakes up more easily when exposed to moisture. I NEVER use garlic salt – read the label . . . the number one ingredient is salt, not garlic . . . it should be labeled salted garlic.

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The tied pork roast (two center cut loin pieces) was about 5" in diameter and weighed about 7-8 pounds. It was seasoned and vacuum sealed and refrigerated overnight at 35F. My hot tap water is 120F (from a tankless water heater) and the roast went from the refrigerator into the 120F water with the circulator set for 142F. It took about 20 min for the water bath to reach cooking temp and the cook was four hours (my best guess is that the roast would have risen to about 60-70F in those first 20 min, roughly equivalent to allowing the roast to sit at room temp for an hour or so prior to cooking). I have tried repeatedly to add photos of the roast after sous vide, after searing with a flame thrower, and sliced, but it just is not happening. The meat was perfectly done . . . tender and juicy.

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Just worth remember g that heat penetration is not linear. Baldwin’s table 2.2 is a useful reference. http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Effects_of_Heat_on_Meat

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Max, a 5-inch thick roast is off Baldwin’s Table 2.2. Although people do it, SV cooking is inappropriate for meat or poultry more than 3-inches thick. That twin-tied pork loin roast would be better cooked if it had been untied and the pieces cooked separately. > Doubling the thickness of the meat increases the cooking time four fold! (Baldwin, 2004 )

The centre of that roast could not have risen in the first 20 minutes. A the low temperatures of SV cooking heat penetrates very slowing.

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Yea, I already know about garlic salt. My old boss used to get so pissed when he would send an employee over to the store to get a big jug of garlic powder, and they would come back with a jug of salt, with a little garlic in it :slight_smile: lol

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Ya’ know, I get what your saying, but I have a hard time understanding how bacteria could make there way deep inside of a solid piece of meat ? Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me, 99.9% of all bacterial contamination would enter through the surface of the meat, no ?

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You are absolutely correct Chris, contamination is substantially less of a hazard with solid pieces of meat. It’s the large fabricated cuts like a Boned and Rolled Chuck Roast and Boned Pork Shoulders that are most potentially hazardous. Meat cutting shops can be messy places with ample opportunity for cross-contamination.

I recall some Community members have said they get around the safety challenge of large, thick roasts roasts that require long low temperature cooks by first immersing the roast in boiling water, or close to it, for a few minutes to kill surface bacteria on the roast and then proceed to cook at the normal low SV heat.

At the time i read that i had two concerns. I didn’t think a quick dip was long enough to actually kill common food pathogens and i was unsure if they used it, the commonly used plastic bags were safe at high temperatures. Zip-Loc says their product is food safe up to 180ᴼF. I would never SV cook anything thicker than 3-inches so i have not done any research on the timing for that preliminary high temperature immersion tactic.

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Thank you Chatnoir.

Or, how about Prague powder ? …or a brine bath ?

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Chris, you really do like that smoker of yours. Now you are trending into cured meats, - heading for something like Chris’s Pastrami?

Meat pathogens can be controlled in several ways. Most of us use heat but you can venture into the use of salts, - nitrites and nitrates, acids, and even some spices. That’s what makes cooking so diverse and interesting.

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:slight_smile: lol Yes, that ultra cheap, thrown together thing really adds a lot of great smoke flavor.

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What I’m trying to figure out now, is whether or not an overnight brine bath using Prague Powder would help to eliminate any surface contamination ? I’m not really trying to do like the 5 to 7 day cure, to make pastrami or bacon… at least not yet anyway.

Followed by a 1 1/2 to 2 hr cold smoking, then a nice, long SV… followed by a quick torch searing…

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I wouldn’t worry too much about surface contamination. Just handle the meat as if was badly contaminated. Try your idea, you can’t go far wrong.

Salt will do you too, and/or the nitrite if you want a redder colour in your meat.

I cringe when i see people washing meat before cooking thinking that will rid them of any surface bacteria. And even worse, not sanitizing the sink before using it again.

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Thanks for sharing,it’s really tasty dish