Smoked Pork Tenderloin on a Stick

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This smoked pork tenderloin on a stick can serve as dinner laid across a bed of rice with some summer vegetables or you can eat them by themselves as a game time appetizer or a party dish while your guests wait on the real food.

Extremely versatile and did I mention that these are quick and easy to make?

Smokes to a perfect 145°F in about 1 hour and if you want to give them a little smoke and then some sizzle on the grill, well, you can do that too.

• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Marinate Time: 8 hours (or overnight)
• Cook Time: 1 hour
• Smoker Temp: 230°F
• Meat Finish Temp: 145°F
• Recommended Wood: Hickory

• 2 pork tenderloins (about 1.5 lb each and usually come 2 per pack)
• Worcestershire sauce
• Jeff's original rub
• Jeff's barbecue sauce
• Red pepper flakes
• Wooden skewers
• Honey

Lay the tenderloins on the cutting board and remove as much of the visible fat and silverskin that you can. Using a very sharp knife will do wonders for you here.

Press one of the tenderloins down flat with the flat edge of your knife or the palm of your hand.

Cut the tenderloin into strips that are about 1/4 inch wide. Don't stress over this as it does not have to be perfect.

 

Place the strips into a gallon sized Ziploc bag or plastic/glass bowl with:

• Worcestershire (enough to cover)
• 1/3 cup of Jeff's original rub
• 2-3 TBS of red pepper flakes (optional and only if you like things a little spicier)

Place the bag or bowl into the fridge overnight (8-10 hours). If you can it is always a good idea to stir things around a little at the halfway point to make sure that everything is getting well marinated in there.

My skewers were about 12 inches long and I wanted the meat to be in the middle so you could hold the stick on both sides.

Place about 2 strips on each stick by pushing the stick through the top of the strip and then through the bottom giving you the fan pattern. Push the meat toward the center of the stick so that it is fairly tight.

You should get about 4 skewers per 1.5 lb tenderloin.

 

Set up your smoker for cooking at about 230°F and enough smoking wood for about an hour of smoke.

Once the smoker is ready and maintaining, place the sticks of pork tenderloin directly on the grate. If you have the Bradley racks like I do, this will be a very easy thing to do.

The new finish temperature for pork is 145°F and this is a wonderful thing since this allows it to be juicy and tender as it should be. Some cuts of pork are fatty and tough and must be cooked way higher than this to tender it up but not so for cuts like pork tenderloin and pork loin.

Use a thermometer such as the Thermapen or a remote digital meat thermometer like the Thermoworks Smoke to monitor the temperature so you can remove it right when it is in it's most perfect state.

For thin meats like this, the thermapen will work much better if you have one.

Depending on how thick you ended up slicing the meat, it should take about 45 minutes to an hour to smoke cook these to 145°F.

About 30 minutes into the process, brush the honey barbecue sauce (recipe below) onto the meat. Brush on more about 15 minutes later.

Honey Barbecue Sauce

• 1/4 cup of Jeff's barbecue sauce
• 1/4 cup of Honey

Mix together well. Works best if the honey is heated just a little.

This goes great with the pork tenderloin especially if you are using these as an entree.

Slice red onions about 1/2 inch thick and place a toothpick through it to hold the rings together.

Lay the onion slices on a Bradley rack and coat with olive oil and a good sprinkling of my original rub .

Put the  onions in the smoker at 230°F about 30 minutes before the tenderloins go on if you want them to be really soft (wimpy). 1.5 hours was perfect for me.

If you want them to have a little al-dente to them, then 1 hour is good.

Brush on a little of the honey barbecue sauce about 30 minutes before they are done cooking.

Enjoy!

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