Get Your Grill On

Oh, which item to tackle first? The Rotal Barby or the Tofino style pork shoulder? Before we do either, I want to make it perfectly clear that I most certainly did not use the word Barby to be cheeky. Personally, if someone says to me, “Let’s put another shrimp on the barby.” I’ll cleave them in twain, like right now. No, the name Barby is actually imprinted on the rig directly. Not only that, they trademarked the word Barby, they can have it. So, it really is a Rotal Barby. Ever heard of one? Seen one?Click through my good fellow or fellee and come see this fancy pork shoulder and a new grill for Meathenge Labs.

The Rotal is a Scottish rig, you heered right. Seems odd to have such a well built and designed rig from a country whose cuisine seems to be derived mainly from a bet. Tongue in cheek here people, simmerdownnow.

Okay, there’s this large center pole, and coming off of that are these 3 pie slices that can move to the right or left. The bottom slice holds the charcoal, the next one up is your direct grilling and the 3rd one there … does less direct grilling.

It’s pretty fricken cool and exceptionally easy to use. I had it down in about 20 minutes.

For this meal I built a smallish fire on the far left and put the food on the far upper right. Then, slid the lid a little open on the right. This caused the heat and the smoke to travel towards the food. Cool, eh? The meat was on the right with the heat and the corn was on the left, in the dark. After all was said and done it was given two thumbs up, the Rotal is no slouch.

Now for the Tofino style pork shoulder. Sourdough Monkey Wrangler gifted it to me a week ago. My meat riddled mind thought he’d made it, but I was wrong. He’d picked it up from Taylor’s sausage company down there in Oakland, CA. I initially figured I could find the recipe or do what the rest of us do, google the sucker. Nada.

So, while I cannot offer a recipe of this paprika based dry rub with a lovely sweetness that rides on the back, the execution is most certainly worth a mention here. Check out the detail there, it looks like brains er fingers er somethin’. Here’s the scoop, nearly freeze your pork shoulder and cut in to french fry portions. Add dry rub liberally and pull in to softball sized portions. Then install in to sturdy plastic bag and twist, twist, twist, until it’s in a very tight, rough ball shape. Toss in to fridge for up to 4 days or so. Or as mine was, toss in to freezer for future use.

What you end up with are these little, spritely pork roasts that can be pulled apart for a grilled stir-fry or smoked whole! The latter is what I chose and the darned thing held up fine and sliced as a roast would. We were all very impressed with the external and internal flavors here. Again, 2 thumbs up.

Just when I thought I’d seen all the kinds of grills and cooked all the roasts, the Rotal & Tofino style pork roast shows up to brighten the day. This is most certainly worth a cool refreshing beverage.

Biggles