Center Cut Bone-In Pork Chop with Balsamic, Honey glaze/sauce

Center Cut Bone-In Pork Chop with Balsamic, Honey glaze

Around our house we love pork chops. Preferably bone-in as I feel there's more flavor with the bone in meat. However, I'll eat a boneless pork chop in a minute as well! Picked up two nice, thick chops for our meal and headed home.

To start things off, I decided to brine the pork chops. Not familiar with brining? Well, here's your chance to know. Brining is a saltwater mixture for meat to sit in for an extended period of time to add flavor and tenderness. The sky is the limit with brining meats really. There is no right or wrong way really. Well, I guess if you really threw in too much salt or some other type of substance.

For this brine recipe, I used salt, pepper, garlic, lemon, lemon peel, and brown sugar. Oh and of course, water.

3 cups water
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup light brown sugar
Juice of lemon
Lemon peel slices (make sure to not cut into the white part of the lemon)
Peppercorns
2-3 cloves garlic (or 1-2 teaspoons garlic powder).

Here's a picture of the chops in the brine mixture.

About an hour before cooking, drain liquid and pat dry. I then took canola oil and drizzled over the chops. I then seasoned with salt, pepper, season salt, and white sugar. I just placed a tablespoon of each in a little bowl and combined well, then season liberally over the chops. If you're feeling adventurous, add some coffee to the mixture. It is divine!

Also, you will want to get your grill ready for direct cooking (cooking directly over the heat source) at roughly 425-450°.

Here I have the chops seasoned and I was feeling adventurous and added some coffee....

The balsamic glaze.

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup honey
1 green onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Half stick of butter, cubed

In a small sauce pan, bring the vinegar, honey, green onions, garlic, salt, and pepper to a boil over medium-high heat. You will want to stir every 30 seconds or so. The key is to let the balsamic reduce some to where it's getting thicker and coats the back of a wooden spoon nicely.

Remove from heat, and add butter. Taste for seasoning. Add and adjust accordingly.

By now, your grill should be nice and hot ready for your chops. I like to take a rag and wipe with canola oil over the grate just so no sticking happens.

You will want to place these on the grill for and let cook for 2-3 minutes. After that rotate 45° and cook for another 2-3 minutes. This will give you those nice diamond looking grill marks like the pro you are!

Flip after that amount of time and do the same rotate business. You will want to ensure the internal temperature is 145° of the chop. Some like to pull at 140° and the heat internally usually makes the meat creep to 145-150°, but I personally like my pork a tad more done. So I pull at 145° and let creep to 150°.

To layer more flavors, I brushed some of the honey balsamic glaze over each side a couple times during the cook, near the end.