Slapilicious Smoked Pork Crown Roast with Jimmy Dean Sausage Apple Stuffing
I love pork and have cooked it many ways including Pork Belly Pig Candy, Asian-style, Pineapple Pork, Pork Spiral, Hawaiian Kalua, Soy Vinegar, Lemongrass, Sushi, homemade sausages, 1st Place UK Iron Chef chops, Caveman Ribs, and Boston Butt. If you’d like to jazz up your centerpiece pork dish for the holidays or festive season entertaining, try a fabulous smoked crown roast of pork.
This rendition is for busy people as it’s super easy with minimal number of store-bought ingredients including my fav (but jazzed up) Stove Top box stuffing and Jimmy Dean spicy sausage. Pork loin (the ribeye of a hog) needs a bit of help to stay moist and flavorful as it does not have much marbling or striations of fat within the cut. So, to amp up on flavors we do a dry brine first. If you can, leave on the rub mixture on overnight in the fridge, or even 30 minutes is better than no brine. The small NaCl salt molecules will penetrate the pork and give it moist plumpiness (love this no-such-word), infuse saltiness after cooking, and prevent it from drying out during smoking.
Before we get too far, what the heck is a pork crown besides looking like a crown in the final dish? As a refresher, store-bought ribs have 13 rib bones on the left ribcage and 13 on the right; occasionally some racks have 14 (I usually ask my students how many humans have . . . you have 12). The ribcage is cut into 2/3 for the front to become sparerib and the rear 1/3 is the loin-back or baby-back rib. The baby back rib that has the loin meat attached is called a pork chop.
Next time you go to Sams or Costco, look out for the ten pound 20-inch whole boneless pork loin. In a cow, that is where the ribeye comes from. The pork crown is the same pork loin with rib bones still attached. To make a pork crown, you will need two bone-in loins to make into a circle with the rib bones trimmed (called Frenched) pointing upwards. The bone-in loin has 10 bones as the others are too small so they are trimmed off. Figure two bones a person so if you are only cooking for 4-5 persons, you can do it with only one bone-in loin. However, you will have to partially cut into each bone to make butterfly pork chops to form into a circle. This partial cut single bone-in loin version is OK but the meat.
For this recipe, I used bone-in loins which came from Amazon.com. Attach them end-to-end so it is long enough shape a circle. Use butchers’ twine to hold the contraption together. If this is too complicated for you (Frenching, butterfly, and twining), don’t worry. You can “cheat” by cooking the whole bone-in loin (one or two) and then cutting them into single bone pork chops. Lay some mashed potatoes in your serving platter and stick the single chops bone point into the potatoes formed into a circle. Spoon the stuffing in the middle and add some garnish (NOTE: I prefer to cook my stuffing separately in a pot). No fear, you’ll still get you maximum eye candy results.
- Total Time: 5 hours
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
- Two five-pound pieces totaling a 10-lb Pork Loin Crown Rib Roast
Herb Dry Brine
- 8 tablespoons Slap Yo Daddy All Purpose rub
- 2 cloves garlic, rough chopped
- 4 tablespoons any chopped herbs (thyme, sage, or rosemary are good), chopped (skip this if you don’t have any)
- 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Stuffing
- 1 tube 16 oz Jimmy Dean sausage (Hot, Sage, or Regular, your pick)
- 1 package (two 6 oz bags in it) store-bought Stove Top stuffing
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cups celery, chopped
- 1 cup Granny Smith apple, 1/2 inch cube
- 2 cups canned chicken stock + water as needed to get stuffing to right consistency
- OPTIONAL – 2 tablespoons of any leftover herb from the dry brine mixture
- OPTIONAL – 1/4 cup dried fruit or nuts (leftovers from Thanksgiving like cranberries or walnuts)
- OPTIONAL – Garnish such as orange slices, Italian parsley, water cress, rosemary, thyme, lemons
Instructions
- Prepare your crown roast of pork and clean the bones of meat with a sharp boning knife. This is called Frenching. Of if you can’t be bothered, pay more for a fancy butcher shop to do it for you. If you are using one rack, make a cut into the meat between the ribs so it can be bent into a circle
- Mix the rub, garlic, herbs, and olive oil in a bowl.
- Spread the rub mixture all over the meat and refrigerate for at least 30 mins or better overnight. You want to apply enough rub mixture so that the meat underneath is covered and cannot be seen
- After the dry brine period, remove from fridge and shape into a circle. You can hold the shape using a bamboo or steel skewer or tie butchers’ twine around the Frenched bones
- Smoke in 275F to 325F kettle with briquettes or do this in your oven. Remove when internal temp is 145F, about 45-90 minutes depending on size, one or two crowns, and whether you made a cut into the loin meat
- Note: if you want a better char, use this handheld torch and gas canister to sear the outside after it’s done
- While the crown is cooking, prepare the stuffing by sautéing the Jimmy Dean sausage until it is almost cooked. Add the apples to sauté until they are at your desired doneness. Add the onion and celery and stir until tender. Add the chicken stock and Stove Stop packages.
- Add in the optional ingredients if you have them. Heat and stir. Add water as needed to get to right consistency
- Rest the meat loosely tented for 20 minutes. Serve the crown on a round platter (cut off the string or remove the skewers) and spoon the prepared stuffing in the middle cavity. Put extra stuffing into a serving dish. Garnish the crown and serve.
- Prep Time: 90 mins
- Cook Time: 3 hours 30 mins
- Category: Special Occasion Dish
- Cuisine: American