Pork Burnt End... Also Known As Meat Candy

So some of you may have heard of "Burnt Ends" either in person, at a restaurant, or somewhere on the internet. I'd read about them quite a few times, but had never had nor seen them anywhere around where I live. My guess is that it's a down south thing because I live on the west coast where the best bbq is what comes off my own grill and the restaurants are basically a waste of money (in my experience, I haven't tried them all, so I'm sure there's some exception somewhere).

Doing some research, I found that you can make burnt ends out of pork. They aren't really burnt ends, but it achieves a similar goal and tastes incredible. So let's get down to making some cubed meat candy.

What you'll need

• Pork Butt
• Apple Pellets (or Oak or Cherry)
• Worcestershire Sauce
• BBQ Sauce (OMG is best)
• foil pan

Seasonings

• 2tbsp pepper
• 1tbsp chilli pepper
• 1tbsp paprika
• 2tbsp Cumin
• 1tbsp curry powder
• 1/4 cup kosher salt

How it's done

So let's get started. First things first, you may notice the rub is basically my pulled pork rub, but with half the salt. Same cut of meat, same rub, very different flavor. 

The first step is to mix the rub ingredients. 

Step two; get the meat on a pan, douse it in Worcestershire sauce, then rub all of the sides with the rub. For this step, use a jar with a lid for sprinkling stuff because we wanna use the extra rub later in the recipe. 

Next, wrap her in foil and let it sit in the fridge overnight to marinade those seasonings in a bit. 

Okay, times up, turn the grill to 180° and throw her on fat side down

Now, wait till it gets to 170° internal temp with a instant read meat thermometer and take it off... but don't turn off the grill, we aren't done yet. 

Once you get it on the counter, get your slicer out and cube it up. 

Cubed? Alright, next you're gonna add the rest of that rub to the cubes inside of a foil pan. Mix them up really really well, then add about a cup of bbq sauce and mix it in really well too. 

Okay, now there's a few things you can do, I put the grill at 300° and covered it with foil (poke holes in the bottom of the pan on the grill to let liquid drain out otherwise you won't get the nice bark you want. After it's cooked a couple hours, turn it up to about 400, take off the foil top and mix it up every 10 minutes, done when it's reached the desired crunch or crust on the pieces, just take one out and eat it to check. 

And that's it. Serve it up with whatever you like. These taste incredible, and they're pretty simple to make. People will be asking what it is and how you made it, pretty much guaranteed. If you've got a different seasoning mix or sauce you prefer, go ahead and use that. It's a hard dish to mess up. 

#hardwoodsonly