Grilled Pork Chops

This recipe is about as "old school" as it gets. More like something straight out of the 50's. No fancy ingredients. Just some bone-in pork chops and a couple of bottles of good stuff from your pantry.

Carl Frey used to be Executive Vice President of Marketing at Valvoline during the 80's and this was his favorite way to grill a meal. Here it is in a nutshell: marinate the meat in Italian dressing, then while you're grilling it, give it a good dousing of worcestershire sauce. That's it.

I will carry it a little bit further because I am picky about the ingredients. My Italian dressing of choice is Kraft Zesty Italian. This dressing is made with lemon juice, which adds a nice little zing to the taste. My worcestershire sauce of choice is Lea & Perrins. No other worcestershire sauce can hold a candle to that brand.

It was 77 degrees at 6:00 pm yesterday. That made it the perfect night to pour a chilled glass of Chateau St. Jean chardonnay and fire up the Weber on the deck for a little grillin'. We had these pork chops with some fresh corn on the cob* and a Caprese salad. Kickin' back old school never tasted so good.


Ingredients
4 bone-in pork chops, 1 1/2 inches thick
8-ounce bottle Kraft Zesty Italian Dressing
Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce


Directions

1. Place pork chops in a Ziploc bag. Shake bottle of Kraft dressing and add contents to bag. Seal bag and lay bag flat in refrigerator. Marinate for 4 hours, flipping the bag halfway through.
2. Fill a charcoal chimney with charcoal and ignite. Build a two-zone fire in your charcoal grill so that half of the charcoal grate has hot coals and the other half is empty. (For a gas grill, turn half the burners on high, half the burners to off.)
3. Remove pork chops from marinade and wipe them dry with a paper towel.
4. Place pork chops over hot coals and splash on a generous amount of worcestershire sauce. Cover grill and cook for 3 minutes.
5. Flip pork cops and splash on another generous amount of worcestershire sauce. Cover grill and cook for 3 more minutes.
6. Move pork chops to the side of the grill that has no coals. Cover grill and cook for 8 minutes.
7. Remove chops from grill. Tent chops with foil and let them rest for 5 minutes. Then serve.

Wine pairing: Merlot or Syrah

*While we are many months away from great Iowa and Minnesota corn, Costco has some really good corn from Mexico called Glori Ann. The corn is pre-cleaned and comes in packages of eight. You'll find it in the refrigerated produce section at Costco.