It had been a race against time since before I started. This two-plus-pound pork tenderloin had been calling to me from the fridge all day. I wanted to marinate and grill that beautiful thing, but the weather forecast had said it would begin raining sometime after 7:00 PM. I reasoned that if I began preparations as soon as I came through the door, I might be able to pull it off. Game on!

But how should I prepare the thing? That was the question. The pork tenderloin is a versatile cut of meat that lends itself to rubs, marinades, and other treatments. My personal favorite is a Mediterranean-style marinade that I learned from my mother. I’ve also done bacon-wrapped, Asian-style barbecue, bourbon-marinated, and more, but I wanted to try something different. I spent part of my lunch hour perusing recipes online. I seldom follow recipes, but I often get good ideas from them. In this particular case, I needed ideas that required little in the way of time or unusual ingredients.

I struck pay dirt with a Sweet Pineapple Soy Grilled Pork Tenderloin recipe from Slap Yo Daddy BBQ, a competitive barbecue team headed by TLC’s BBQ Pitmasters Head Cook Harry Soo. The recipe was simple enough, even though I would not be following it precisely, and I figured with a name like Slap Yo Daddy, it couldn’t miss.

The basic marinade combines brown sugar, soy sauce, pineapple juice, and Chinese five spice powder. I augmented this with a few drops of sesame oil, which seemed to work well. A word of caution to the uninitiated, sesame oil is an excellent seasoning but is also very strong mojo. Use it sparingly or you will swear you are still smelling it for weeks afterward. You mix up your marinade, pour it into a gallon freezer bag, and then after removing any silver skin, you toss the tenderloin in and let it marinate for an hour or two.

The recipe says to reserve some pineapple juice for basting, which I did. That’s fine, but I’d like to try reserving a portion of the full-on marinade next time and basting the meat with that instead.

After removing and discarding the excess marinade (never baste with marinade that has had raw meat sitting in it), the recipe says to sprinkle a light coat of Slap Yo Daddy Rub on the meat. I didn’t have any, so I used my current favorite rub, Mike’s All Purpose Seasoning,  which worked just fine. At this point I usually sear my tenderloin and then move to indirect heat and smoking. This recipe called for the reverse order, which I followed. I’m not sure which order I will follow next time; there are worthy arguments for either.

Once the pork came off, it was time to grill some fresh (as in not canned) pineapple slices. This was my first attempt at grilling a fruit, so I basically followed the recipe, brushing some oil onto the pineapple slices and then treating them with a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon before tossing them on the grill. As you may be able to tell from the photo above, I turned the slices a couple of times in order to achieve the classic criss-cross grill lines. I probably could have cooked them a little longer, but this being my first time, I was afraid of overcooking the fruit.

At that point it was all over but the tasting—and let me tell you, it tasted good! My wife contributed some French-cut green beans to complement the sweetness of the pineapple and pork. This worked out very well. I will surely tweak things a little next time, but pineapple grilled pork tenderloin is definitely a dish I will be preparing again.

In case you are wondering, yes, I got everything done before the rain arrived. I had to let the grill cool a bit before covering it, so I enjoyed supper first. Then I went back outside and put everything away. Interestingly enough, the skies opened up within one minute of my going back inside after cleaning and covering the grill. Apparently somebody up there likes me.

Thanks for hanging with me.