Back to Grilling Basics

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Welcome to "America's Test Kitchen" at home.

Today, I'm making grilled pork tenderloin with a pineapple salsa.

Adam's got all the tools you need when heading out to the grill, and Dan's making grilled cauliflower.

We've got a lot in store today, so stick around.

♪♪ Pork tenderloin is often sold preseasoned or marinated at the supermarket, but I'm not a fan of those products.

I think they taste a little artificial, and they have a mushy texture.

So today I'm gonna show you how to make a good pork tenderloin with real flavor by putting it on the grill with a little spice rub.

As long as we're on the grill, I'm gonna make a quick grilled pineapple salsa to go with it.

Now, how to tell if a pineapple is ripe.

This is what I've been told, and this has always worked for me.

So I'm gonna pass it on to you.

You want to try to pick the pineapple with a leaf from the center.

If you can't pick the pineapple up or it goes like that and a leaf falls out, your pineapple is ripe.

I don't know if that's exactly true, but it's never let me down.

Alright.

So now we're just gonna grill half of this pineapple for the salsa.

You're gonna cut the top off, and I'm gonna cut the bottom off.

Now I'm just gonna use a sharp knife to cut the skin away from the pineapple.

And I know there are some fancy ways to do it at a diagonal with these little grooves to get out those pineapple eyes.

I'm still mastering that.

So when I master it, then I'll show you.

You want to trim away those dark eyes, but you don't want to waste too much pineapple.

So this is where I go back, and I try to just take off just enough because those eyes have a really funky texture that you don't want to eat.

Alright, so we're gonna save half of this pineapple for later.

To grill the pineapple, I'm gonna cut this half a pineapple into six wedges, and I haven't removed the core yet.

You can just slice it right out.

Cut it into some nice, long wedges that won't fall through the grill grates.

I'm gonna put it over here on this baking sheet.

We're gonna have a clean sheet for the cooked food when it comes back in.

The salsa also has a little bit of red onion, and we're gonna grill that, too, for a little extra flavor.

I'm just gonna cut off the stem end, then cut through the root end, leaving that root end intact so it helps keep those layers together.

And now is when I peel the onion.

Cut this into eight wedges.

That just ensures that they'll cook through quickly on the grill.

Put these on the baking sheet to go outside.

Now I'm gonna give that pork just a little bit of flavor by making a simple spice rub.

And it starts with just a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt and -- secret ingredient -- teaspoon and a half of sugar.

This adds flavor, but it also encourages good browning on the grill.

1/2 teaspoon of cumin and 1/2 teaspoon -- ahh -- of chipotle powder, which adds spice and a little smoky flavor.

So I'm just gonna mix this up, and I'm going to reserve 1/2 teaspoon of this to add to the salsa.

That way, the flavors will marry nicely.

Time for the pork tenderloin.

Now, usually these don't need a ton of trimming, but you can see this one has some silver skin.

You want to take that off because that's gonna be pretty chewy.

Just gonna use a boning knife.

Boning knives are good here because they're flexible, and that flexible knife is gonna make it really easy to get under that silver skin without getting too much of the meat.

You just poke right under the silver skin, and then angle the knife blade up.

You see how it's angled up away from the pork tenderloin?

That just allows you to get very little meat.

So you're not wasting a lot, but you're getting that chewy silver skin off.

Now, that looks pretty good.

This little bit of fat I'm gonna leave on.

It's gonna render on the grill, and it's gonna taste pretty good.

You don't want it to be too lean.

I put everything on the sheet pan.

That just makes it easy to carry it out to the grill all at once.

To get ready for the grill, the pineapple and the onions just need a little bit of oil.

This is vegetable oil.

Gonna rub it all over.

And then for the pork tenderloin, I'm gonna sprinkle with this spice rub.

Mm.

You want to sprinkle it all over.

Oh, it's gonna add good flavor.

Alright, so this is all ready for the grill.

I'm just gonna get cleaned up, and we can head outside.

♪♪ -One of my favorite books about food is called "Zora Neale Hurston on Florida Food: Recipes, Remedies & Simple Pleasures."

This book is written by Dr. Frederick Douglass Opie, and it's centered around Zora Neale Hurston's journey around Jacksonville, Florida, studying food of Black people in the region.

It's of the early 20th century, and it talks about food recipes and also recipes that heal the body, which is very interesting.

It talks a lot about how the people of Jacksonville actually used herbs from the land for medicine.

One of my favorite recipes is for upset stomach.

"Upset stomach remedy recipe, makes 1 serving.

Parched rice, bay leaves, 1 cup hot water.

Make a tea of parched rice and bay leaves.

Give a cup at a time.

Drink no other water."

Sounds like we've been doing a lot of food healing for a very long time.

This book is full of great information about the people of Jacksonville.

It has some really great Southern recipes and also the health remedies actually do still work.

♪♪ -So I've been heating this grill up for about 15 minutes with all the burners on high, so it's good and hot.

And I have no shame in my game, putting one of these on.

This grill gets really hot, and I like to protect my hands.

So first up, we're gonna clean the grill.

We're just gonna scrape off any of the food that stuck to the grill grates from last time I cooked.

And now we're gonna oil the grill.

So I have a wad of paper towels and a nice, long pair of tongs and a bowl of vegetable oil.

I just dip the paper towels into the vegetable oil.

We're gonna rub it all over the grill grates.

Now that the grill is all good and clean, it's time to turn two of the burners off.

I'm leaving just that primary burner on.

That creates a hot side and a cool side, which is what you want when you're cooking pork tenderloin.

And I'm gonna cook this on the hot side for about eight minutes, turning it every few minutes so that it gets nice and well browned on all sides.

Now, depending on the strength of your gas grill, you might want to close the lid to help trap that heat so you can get nice browning on all sides.

If you have a really powerful grill, however, you can just cook with the lid open.

So it's been a couple of minutes on that first side.

Oh, looking good.

So we're just gonna spin it and get grill marks all the way around.

I've been browning this pork nicely on all sides.

We have one last side to do.

You can see how beautiful that char is.

That's the charred sugar and spices, which is gonna taste delicious.

So it will just be a couple more minutes on this last side.

Oh, beautiful.

You can see, it's nice and evenly charred all around.

Now I'm gonna slide these pork tenderloins over to the cool side of the grill.

That way they can finish cooking evenly without burning on the outside.

And while they cook through, it's time to cook the pineapple and onions for the salsa.

So onto the hot side the pineapple goes, and it's the same for the onions.

About eight minutes to get some nice grill marks on all sides.

Let's see.

Oh, this pineapple has beautiful grill marks on both sides, but it's still holding together.

We haven't overcooked it, which is just right.

So I'm gonna take it off the grill, and I'm putting it on a clean try.

These onions also look perfect.

You can see they're lightly charred, and they've really wilted substantially.

And that's a good thing.

Put them on the sheet pan.

Alright.

So now let's take a look at the pork.

Again, we're looking for an internal temperature of around 140 degrees.

Perfect.

142.

Right on the money.

So I'm gonna take these off the grill.

This looks beautiful.

Now I'm just gonna tent the pork just while it rests, and we can head inside.

Now that we're back inside, I'm gonna transfer these pork tenderloin to a carving board so they can finish resting there.

And we'll set that aside while we make the pineapple salsa.

I'm just gonna chop the pineapple into slightly smaller pieces before I add it to the food processor.

For the onions, I'm gonna do the same thing, but I'm gonna cut out that root end because that doesn't taste good.

Few other things to add to the salsa.

I'm gonna add a chili pepper.

I'm just gonna cut it in half, and I'm gonna scrape out the ribs and the seeds because I don't want this salsa too spicy.

Just gonna cut these into slightly smaller pieces before I add it to the food processor.

In it goes.

Next I'm gonna add a little fresh lime juice.

About 2 tablespoons or so.

You can add more to taste.

That looks good.

And now the reserved spice seasoning that we used for the pork.

I'm gonna add this to the salsa.

I'm gonna add a tablespoon of vegetable oil.

And last but not least, a good helping of cilantro.

You want to go for about 1/2 cup.

But I love cilantro, so sometimes I add a bit more.

I'm gonna trim away those tough stems at the bottom.

But the more delicate stems in the middle and towards the top, I'm just gonna throw right in there.

Into the food processor goes the cilantro.

And now I'm just gonna pulse it a few times -- four or five times -- until it's a nice salsa consistency.

Hmm.

Little extra cilantro on top for a garnish looks pretty.

Now, we do have a few other salsas that taste great with this pork, one with tomatilloes and one with tomatoes.

And you can find them on our website.

The pork is done resting, and it's time to give it a taste.

Now, this looks really good.

I love that char on the pork.

Mmm, that little bit of the pink inside is just how I like it.

And now the salsa.

Mmm!

Perfectly cooked.

That has good flavor.

The texture of the pork is just tender enough with that nice char on the outside, and the salsa has a bright, fresh flavor.

Oh, the total bite right here.

A little bit of pork, a little bit of salsa.

That's what pork tenderloin is supposed to taste like.

If you want to make this awesome pork tenderloin, just remember two things.

First, you want to turn the pork frequently as it cooks.

And second, pull it from the grill when it reaches 140 degrees.

From "America's Test Kitchen" at home, an amazing recipe for grilled pork tenderloin with a grilled pineapple and red onion salsa.

♪♪ -On a gorgeous day like this, you probably want to go outside and grill as badly as I do, and regardless of what you're gonna cook or the type of grill you're using, there are a couple of tools and techniques that you can have on hand to set yourself up for grilling success.

Now, a gas grill is undeniably convenient.

I use mine all the time, but to be honest, I still prefer the flavor and aroma of food cooked over charcoal.

And in that case, you're gonna have to light your charcoal.

We don't like using lighter fluid because we think it gives the food sort of an off flavor.

We prefer to use a chimney starter, and the chimney starter we prefer to use is the $15 Weber Rapidfire.

It's super simple to use.

There's a little chamber in the bottom where you put a few sheets of crumpled-up paper.

You don't need much more than two or three sheets.

You put that down in the grill, load the top chamber with charcoal, light that paper through one of these slits in the bottom.

That will, in turn, light the charcoal.

And 20 minutes later, you'll have beautiful glowing coals, which you then have to pour out of the chimney starter into your grill.

And that's one of the reasons we love this chimney starter.

Look at this big, beefy handle.

It's easy to pick up, and there's a helper handle, so it's super easy to pour out the coals and aim them precisely.

In my ever humble opinion, it is imperative to start with a hot, clean grill grate to hedge against any sticking.

So you put the grate in place, you heat it up, and then you have to scrape it clean, and you're gonna need a grill brush for that.

Our favorite model is this one.

This is the Weber 12-inch grill brush.

It's $8, and it's super easy to use.

It's got this triangular head, and you take the wide end, and it covers a lot of territory on your grill grate.

And then you can take the little edge of the triangle and put it in between the tines on the grill grate.

This brush has wire bristles, and some people prefer to avoid those.

So another great choice is this one.

This is the Kona Safe/Clean bristle-free grill brush.

It's about $20.

And instead of wires, it's got stainless-steel coils as the brushing part.

The next step is to oil the grill grate.

And again, no matter what you're cooking, this is a good idea.

You're gonna need a wad of paper towels.

And our favorite is Bounty.

You wad them up, you dip them into a little bit of neutral oil, and then you grab them with tongs and rub the oiled paper towel across the grate like that.

These are our favorite tongs for grilling.

They're the OXO Good Grips 16-inch locking tongs.

They're about $15.

They have a great degree of tension.

And the business end, called the pincers, is precise enough to pick up a toothpick, hefty enough to pick up a big slab of ribs.

I also use a lot of rimmed baking sheets when I grill.

These are great for carrying raw food out to the grill, and you can use a clean one to bring the cooked food back in.

This is our favorite one.

It is the Nordic Ware Baker's Half Sheet.

It's made of aluminum.

It's about $15.

I have five or six of these.

I use them all the time.

So here you have it -- a few of our favorite tools for grilling.

♪♪ -Cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables, and a lot of people think of it as a cold-weather vegetable.

It's from the fall and winter, and we roast it, we turn it into soup, and that's all great.

But it's actually really nice on the grill.

If you do everything right, you can get something that's charred on the outside, tender on the inside.

It's really, really beautiful.

So that's what we're gonna do today.

We're gonna start with this gorgeous head of cauliflower here.

And the first step is to remove the leaves.

So I'm just gonna snap these guys off.

And what I like to do in order to get rid of all of this green that you see around here is to use a paring knife and just trim around.

It makes it much easier to pull everything out.

Okay, great.

So the next step is to trim the stem so that it's flush with the end of the cauliflower.

So just a little bit here.

Just take that off.

A lot of times that part can be a little bit tough.

So we're gonna cut this into wedges, which are a really nice shape for the grill.

They're gonna hold together really well.

It's not gonna fall through the grates.

And they give us a lot of surface area for great browning.

So I'm gonna cut it into six wedges.

Just gonna go first right down the center like that.

I'm gonna turn the cauliflower this way.

It's gonna allow me to see the stem here and I can judge how far my cuts are going in and really get nice wedges out of it.

So for each side, we're gonna get three.

That's great.

So now we have a little bit of core on each one.

That's gonna help them hold together.

So seasoning this with dry salt is not really a great option.

The salt is just gonna bounce right off of the hard cauliflower.

To get around that, we're actually gonna make a solution of salt and sugar and dunk the cauliflower in that, which will help season the outside really, really nicely.

So it starts with 2 cups of water, and then we're gonna do 1/4 cup of salt.

To help with browning on the grill and improve the flavor, we're also gonna add a little bit of sugar.

So I'm adding 2 tablespoons of sugar.

And I'll just whisk it until it's completely dissolved.

Alright.

Now that that's all dissolved, we'll take each piece of cauliflower one at a time and just kind of hold it by the stem here, dunk it in, make sure it's nicely coated in that brine.

We're not gonna leave it in there.

We're gonna get it out.

I'm gonna put it down here on the rounded side.

Alright.

And that is the last one.

It takes a fairly long time for it to soften and get nice and tender on the inside.

So we're actually gonna jump-start this in the microwave.

So I have it on my plate here.

I'm gonna top it with a large bowl.

I'm gonna pop this in the microwave and cook on high power until it is tender.

And I'll tell that by using a paring knife going right into the stem until it meets no resistance.

It usually takes about 14 to 16 minutes.

♪♪ -When I entertain, I really like putting out cheese and charcuterie.

It's a really attractive and tasty way to give people a chance to kind of mingle, chitchat, and snack.

So let's get started.

I have a Robiola here.

I cannot wait to eat this.

It's gonna be delicious.

Next up, a cheddar.

And last, a nice Brie.

Make sure you have a couple that are really approachable that are gonna be really popular and satisfy everyone and then have one or two items that are a little funky, a little challenging so that people are trying something new.

Next up, I have some meats.

Here is a Coppa.

This is a cured Italian salumi.

It's amazing.

It's gonna go right here.

And I also have some summer sausage.

But before I put that down, I'm gonna lay down some mustard.

And that's because I really like this sausage with a mustardy garnish.

And it's a good idea to kind of clue your guests in as to which garnishes are for which item.

And this doesn't have to be perfect.

It's gonna get partially covered... with sausage.

This gets the key players down, and now it's time to garnish.

And we're just kind of filling in these empty spaces here.

First up, I have some cornichon.

They'll be great with both of the meats.

Also great with those meats, pickled shallots.

And what else do we have?

Some peaches.

I really like the peaches with the Brie.

And also I think the sweetness will be really nice with the summer sausage.

So I'm gonna pop my peaches down over here.

Some forks for the meats.

Mm.

Mm.

That can be right there.

If you don't have forks, toothpicks are great, too.

And last up -- crackers.

And that's it.

Just a couple simple tricks for the next time you entertain.

♪♪ -So it's been 14 minutes, and it looks good.

See lots of steam in there.

This is a very hot bowl.

So you want to be really careful as you take the top off.

And I like to do it away from me so that you don't get hit with the steam.

So I'm gonna take my paring knife, and we're gonna test to make sure this is nice and tender.

So we're going right into the stem, and there should be really no resistance at all.

And that is super, super tender.

That's perfect.

When we go on the grill, we know that water is the enemy of good brownings.

We want to get rid of as much as we can on the surfaces.

We'll get better browning for it.

I'm gonna transfer my cauliflower over to this paper-towel-lined plate here and get rid of some of that excess moisture.

And I'm just gonna pat them, make sure we get rid of any moisture that's kind of hanging out on the surfaces.

You can see the paper towel on the bottom soaked up a lot, which is great.

Now they're nice and dry.

I'm gonna transfer them over here to this baking sheet, make it easier to take them out to the grill.

After the cauliflower is grilled, there are so many different ways to finish it with different sauces.

But I'm gonna go with something super simple, just chives and lemon.

I'm gonna start with the chives here while my knife is still nice and dry, and I'm just gonna mince about a tablespoon.

I find having them wrapped in a paper towel like I do here really helps hold them together, make slicing a lot easier.

And then as you get towards the end there, you can just push them up a little bit more.

Otherwise, you get chives all over your cutting board.

It's no good.

Beautiful.

Okay, next up, I'm gonna serve these with some lemon wedges.

Now it's time to head out to the grill.

So the grill has been heating on high for about 15 minutes, so it's nice and hot.

I'm gonna turn the burners all down to medium high.

Next step is I'm gonna get it nice and clean.

So I'm gonna use my grill brush and give it a good scrub.

And because we want nice browning and no sticking, I'm gonna put a little oil on this paper towel and grease them up.

Now time for my cauliflower.

Now, this is nice and tender because we got it in the microwave for about 14 minutes.

So we're just gonna look for really beautiful browning here on the grill.

I've got a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil here, and I'm gonna brush all sides with it.

That's gonna help get us some really beautiful browning.

And I want to flip them and make sure that we get both sides nice and oiled up.

Okay.

So now I'm gonna go on to the grill with the cut side facing down.

I like to use a thin fish spatula for something like this.

You can get under there, be really, really gentle with the cauliflower.

It's a little bit more gentle than using tongs.

Lower the lid here.

We're gonna cook for about three to four minutes until it's spotty brown on that side and then we'll flip.

So it's been four minutes.

We'll take a look.

And we've got some gorgeous browning underneath here.

We've got good browning on that first side.

I'm gonna flip it to the other flat side.

That's the beauty of making wedges.

You get two really gorgeous sides for browning.

Okay, so now we're gonna close the lid, and we're gonna go for another three to four minutes, again, looking for that gorgeous spotty browning.

It's been another four minutes, and we've got gorgeous browning on our second side.

What I'm gonna do is actually get them onto the rounded side of the cauliflower and give that a couple of minutes to cook.

So that's only gonna take another minute or two.

And while that's happening, I'm gonna run inside and grab my platter.

Okay, so it's been another two minutes, and these are perfectly done now.

So I'm gonna bring my platter over here, and we'll pull them off.

We're gonna finish this really simply.

We want that cauliflower and charred flavor to come through, so a little bit more extra virgin olive oil.

I'm gonna use about a tablespoon.

I really like to keep it in a squeeze bottle at home.

Just makes it so much easier to apply it.

So just give a nice drizzle.

Some freshly sliced chives on top.

One of my favorite things to add.

Alright, so it is time to eat.

I'm gonna go for this nice one right here.

I love it with a little bit of lemon, so I'm gonna do a little squeeze on that.

Now, this is one of the most simple ways to do this, but we've got some really interesting flavor combinations and spices up on the website if you want to get a little more creative.

That is absolutely delicious.

It's so tender on the inside, beautifully charred on the outside.

And I love it dressed simply with just a little olive oil, lemon, and chives.

So the two keys to doing it right are dunking the cauliflower in a salt and sugar solution to season it really thoroughly on the outside.

Then we microwave the cauliflower before it hits the grill so that it's beautifully tender inside, nicely charred outside.

For "America's Test Kitchen" at home, my absolute favorite recipe for grilled cauliflower.

♪♪