Coffee BBQ Pork and Sweet Potato Hash
Instant coffee stirred into barbecue sauce, poured over pork and browned sweet potato.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 42 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Pork chops | 2 | boneless cooks faster and packs flatter |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet potato | 1 small | cut into 2 cm cubes at home |
| Green bell pepper | 1 | cored, 2 cm dice |
| Red onion | 1/2 | 2 cm dice |
| BBQ sauce | 2 tbsp | a single-serve packet or a small squeeze bottle |
| Instant coffee | 1 tsp | |
| Cooking oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Feta | 1 oz | optional, cooler only |
Method
- Stir the instant coffee into the barbecue sauce in its bottle or a small cup. Granules dissolve cold; ground coffee will not, so use instant.
- Cover the sweet potato cubes with about 600 ml of water in the pot. Boil 5 to 6 minutes, until a cube gives to a fork but holds its shape. Drain the water off and set the cubes aside.
- Wipe the pot dry, add the oil, and get it hot. Cook the chops 4 to 5 minutes a side until the juices run clear. Pull them out onto a lid or plate.
- Put all the vegetables and the drained sweet potato into the same pot. Salt and pepper them well. Toss every minute or so for 5 minutes, until the onion goes soft and the sweet potato picks up brown edges.
- Slide the pork back in, pour the coffee sauce over, and turn everything for a minute until it goes glossy. Sauce goes in last or the sugar burns before the meat is done.
- Crumble feta over the top if you brought it.
Coffee in barbecue sauce sounds like a stunt and is not. Roasted beans carry the same bitter, savory compounds that make a sauce taste like it has been reduced for an hour, and a teaspoon of instant dissolves into the sauce with no brewing and no grounds in your teeth. Instant is the point here. Ground coffee stays gritty.
The order matters more than anything else. Sweet potato needs a boil to get tender, but boiling it in the same pot first means one pot and one wipe-out for the whole meal. Sauce goes on at the very end, off the main heat, because it is mostly sugar and will char to tar long before a chop is cooked through. This one needs a cooler, so it is a car-camping or basecamp dinner, not something to carry.
Packing
Cube the sweet potato and dice the pepper and onion at home, into one bag each. Chops go vacuum-sealed or frozen flat at the bottom of the cooler and eaten the first or second night. The coffee can be pre-stirred into the sauce bottle before you leave.
Variations
- Chicken breast in place of pork, same timing on a thin cutlet.
- White potatoes work if that is what you have, but they need a couple more minutes in the boil.
- Any color bell pepper does the same job.
https://www.advrider.com/pork-with-coffee-bbq-glaze