Grilled Pork and Plums with Sticky Five-Spice Sauce

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Kalon said if he had a restaurant this would be on the menu! From a Canadian Living recipe. And now I have a second recipe to use Chinese Five-Spice Powder for! I was concerned the plums I had bought seemed a bit mealy, but this didn't affect their taste or texture when they were grilled. The ginger I had was kind of grey-blue inside, apparently an effect of being stored at a cold temperature for a long period of time, but fine to eat!

Sauce:
2 tsp five-spice powder
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tbsp fancy molasses
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 clove garlic, finely grated or pressed
1 tsp finely grated or pressed fresh ginger or 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Pork Chops:
4 bone-in pork-loin chops, 1 inch thick (mine didn't have bones, whatever you prefer)
2 tsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp salt
2 large red plums, pitted and quartered
2 green onions, thinly sliced

In dry skillet, toast five-spice powder over medium heat, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in 1/4 cup water, ketchup molasses, vinegar, garlic, and ginger, stirring frequently, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Mine was quite thick, as I didn't remove the pan from the heat when I turned the heat off, so it was not drizzleable (later we're instructed to simply drizzle the sauce over everything). Instead I used half of it as a glaze to brush on the pork while grilling, and then half to put on after it cooked.

In large bowl combine pork, 1 tsp of the oil and the salt. In separate bowl, toss plums with remaining oil. Place pork and plums on grill over medium-high heat; close lid and grill, turning pork once, until instant-read thermometer inserted sideways in centre of pork reads 155F and plus are grill-marked on all sides, about 8 minutes.

My plums were on the smaller side and I feared they'd slip through the grates, so put them on the little top rack of the grill off the direct heat. They still got nice and caramelized. If I had smaller plums again might try halving, not quartering them next time and put them on the direct heat if using smaller plums - use your discretion!

Drizzle everything with the sauce. My sauce was more sticky, so when I took the plums off the grill I put them back in their bowl and stirred some sauce into them. Then I slathered the chops with more sauce. However you do it, the combination of everything was great!

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