I have a theory about so many of the highly flavoured and sugar laden ‘rubs’ that are used to enhance pork on the grill. I think that the reason they exist is to try to bring a bit of life to otherwise insipid and uninteresting meat. Some of you may spring to argue with this assertion. You might say “If you ever tasted my Uncle Jessey’s ten chilli rub, you would know how flavour can punch you in the gullet.” or “Sue Ellen does a mean brown sugar, corn syrup and honey wet rub.” I don’t deny that either of these probably have some value to add (Lord help us!). My issue is with the unfortunate meat that so many rubs serve to aggrandise. I’m not trying to cause any friction with my rubbing. I’m just making the case here for high quality meat, a balance of rub flavour and some gentle smoking.
While I’m at it, I’ll give you a delicious simple recipe for a Plum and Ginger Sauce to accompany this Smoked Loin of Pork. My rub is pretty straightforward. I think I have a good balance of ingredients – Not too hot, not too sweet. It needs to be so as to avoid overpowering the meat or the gentle flavour added by the peach wood (Thank you Teddy) used to smoke.
Ingredients
- 1 loin of pork about 2 kilo
- 2 teaspoons of soft brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of garlic flakes
- 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon of hot chilli powder
- 1 teaspoon of black pepper
- 1 teaspoon of English mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon of onion salt
Method
Combine the rub ingredients in a bowl and stir to mix.
Skin the joint and slash through the fat but not through the meat. This is to allow the rub flavour permeate the meat.
Rub the joint all over with the delicious, well balanced rub.
Leave the rub to permeate the meat for a few hours. While that is going on, we have time to make a delicious plum and ginger sauce.
Ingredients
- Half a kilo of plums (unripe is OK)
- 5cm piece of ginger root
- Sugar to taste
Place the plums in a saucepan along with the sugar. Slice (roughly) the ginger and add it too. Add a splash of water.
Place this on the heat and cook until the plums have reduced to a mush. The ginger flavour will have added itself to the sauce at this stage.
The sauce is really delicious (belying the simple nature and short ingredients list). When the plums are completely mush, take the saucepan off the heat and let the mixture cool enough for you to pass it through a sieve.
Place the pork on the barbecue. Note my use of a smoker box to get a gentle peach wood smoke going. It’s important to keep the lid shut and only open it to take the occasional photograph. This loin was cooked in an hour and three quarters.
The meat had a lovely gentle smokey flavour and a nice slightly spicy edge. Literally the edge as the rub made that lovely crust.

The sugar helps the rub turn a deep brown/black colour. Not burned, believe me!
We served it with the sauce and some salad, wrapped in tortillas.
I can’t over-emphasise how delicious it was. My rub may not be the hottest, most powerful, cough inducing rub there is. But, I’m not trying to disguise badly reared, poor quality pork. For many, that really is the rub.
In short, the lesson is get great quality ingredients and you won’t have to disguise them with too much flavour. Instead, you can have fun enhancing the flavours and balancing them with some other simple and delicious ingredients. Bon App…
Marty | 17th July 2017
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Beautiful smoky crust and snow white meat? Yes, please! 🙂 I can see myriad uses for that lovely plum sauce as well.
Conor Bofin | Author | 18th July 2017
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The sauce is a real star. I can see it getting an outing with some duck very soon. It works great with ice cream too and it would be fantastic poured over a plum pie (What about a tarte tatin?). Your comment is inspiring me Marty!
katechiconi | 17th July 2017
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I think that sauce is going to find a home in my recipe book, I can see it working well over ice cream, together with a bit of shortbread crumb… The pork’s beautiful, clearly still lovely and tender and that very alluring blackened crust – yum!
Conor Bofin | Author | 18th July 2017
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Hi Kate,
Have you been looking in our kitchen window again? We had the sauce over ice cream the following day. It would be difficult to say which worked best. The sauce is a keeper, for sure.
katechiconi | 18th July 2017
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It’s the sign of a versatile sauce, I’d say. Savoury one day, sweet the next. And if I were close enough to be looking through the window, I’d be knocking on the door come dinner time!
Michelle | 18th July 2017
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That’s a fine looking piece of meat! How well I remember the ’80s and ’90s and being stuck with horrible grocery store pork that was always a chewy piece of something that didn’t taste like anything. Thank goodness we can get wonderful pork now. Oh, and that sauce! (Sadly, good plums are hard to come by here.)
Conor Bofin | Author | 18th July 2017
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These plums were supermarket ‘ripen at home’ variety. That usually boils my blood but in this case, as they were going into a saucepan, they were fine for the purpose. Good plums can be difficult to find in Ireland too. However, I am in France at present and there is an abundance of delightful soft fruits available. Happy times!
anotherfoodieblogger | 18th July 2017
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Well you got me on this one Conor! I have no English mustard powder, and I have no plums. 😉 Beautiful piece of meat, and nice sauce! And looky the size of that tortilla!!
Conor Bofin | Author | 18th July 2017
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Ha! for once we are doing things larger in Ireland than in the US of A. We had a commercial shoot using the tortillas and I ended up with an outer of them. They are appearing on the dinner table with frightening regularity!
StefanGourmet | 18th July 2017
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You are so right about the quality of meat and how bad meat is often disguised with hefty rubs and sauces. The sugar in those rubs or marinades also causes the outside to burn too easily. I noticed the probe — to what temperature did you cook the pork? I think plum sauce is a great accompaniment to smoked meat. I love short ingredient lists, although the plum sauce could be enhanced with a subtle hint of spices to make it more complex (star anise, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, orange zest).
Conor Bofin | Author | 18th July 2017
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On the quality of meat, it really is becoming a “red line” issue for me. There is so much wrong with mass production, particularly of pork and chicken, globally that I feel we have to take some sort of a stand and defend the real benefits of quality. If the animals are reared well, fed well and given a decent life (as a byproduct of these three) then the meat will be better. There is, of course the economic argument made about mass production. I don’t buy it. We are far better off eating better meat less often than we would be by eating some of the crap that passes for meat in our supermarkets. Rant over.
On the temperature, we took it up to 50ºC on the grill and wrapped it in foil. It went on up to 56/57 thereafter.
I agree on the aromatics in the sauce. I will experiment. The one that really appeals is star anise.
StefanGourmet | 18th July 2017
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PS like your thinking of sieving the sauce instead of having to remove those stones.
Conor Bofin | Author | 18th July 2017
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It allows one get the maximum out of the sauce. Though, some patience is required as such a thick sauce takes for ever to get through the sieve.
StefanGourmet | 18th July 2017
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It helps to use a foodmill.
Mad Dog | 18th July 2017
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That pork looks perfect!
A Cookbook Collection | 19th July 2017
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That sauce sounds delicious. And the meat looks pretty good too, even if it is pork 😉
Frank Fariello | 23rd July 2017
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I have to agree about rubs making up for the insipid taste of so much pork, especially the loin. But is it me, or did pork have a lot more flavor back in the day?
Conor Bofin | Author | 31st July 2017
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Back in the day, Frank, most things did. The free range, rare breed pork that we can get (not cheap) here in Ireland is packed with flavour and well worth the premium. It makes for wonderful stock too, if one can get a head or some feet. But, that’s another story altogether.
FrugalHausfrau | 1st August 2017
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Conor, I agree with you on all points! It’s a gorgeous meal and a gorgeous piece of meat. We have to pay an arm and a leg for a shoulder like that here, even though I live in the Midwest (grew up in a small farm town) and am surrounded by farmland. Buying a quarter or a side is the way to go, if possible. Being the humble frugal hausfrau I’m often in a position of “jazzing” up a cheaper grocery cut of shoulder (or other meat) to try to make up for the lack – but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to sit at your table for a night, or maybe every night, lol!
While all your photos are gorgeous, the one of the plums in the saucepan gave me a little pang!
Conor Bofin | Author | 1st August 2017
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Frau, you are welcome at the table any time you make it to Ireland. Here, everything is on a small scale and despite living in the ‘burbs’, I am only ten minutes by bicycle away from rich green pastures. I do understand how lucky we are here.
Think about making the trip….
FrugalHausfrau | 1st August 2017
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🙂 It’s been a dream of mine to visit Ireland for a long time – especially to see where my great, great grandparents came from. 🙂 We literally can walk to where a small farm raises sheep, and see cattle and goats being raised about five minutes from here; it’s our distribution system in the states that is so wrong…unless you search out and make arrangements with a farmer and/or butcher (and have a lot of bank to pay for it all) everything goes by train or truck to large centers and feedlots…it IS slowly changing, though. This happened right by my folk’s house and is such a cute story.
http://www.twincities.com/2017/04/04/pig-escapes-during-trip-to-slaughterhouse-begins-new-life-at-western-wisconsin-sanctuary/
Conor Bofin | Author | 1st August 2017
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A cracking story. I have shared it on the blog’s Facebook page as well as my own. Good news, if you are the pig, for sure.
FrugalHausfrau | 1st August 2017
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🙂 go Wally!