Slashed Pork Chops with Rosemary-Olive Oil Stuffing

Here's a great recipe that I worked up a while back to improve on the basic grilled pork chops. I use this one often because we have a very large rosemary bush growing in our backyard.

3-4 Thick pork chops, about 1.5 inches thick
2 Stalks fresh rosemary
2 TBSP Olive Oil
1 Tsp. Lemon Juice
1 Tsp. Kosher Salt
¼ Tsp. black pepper

Clean the rosemary and strip all the leaves off the stalk. Discard the stalks. Chop the leaves finely. In a small bowl, mix the chopped rosemary, oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Use the back of a spoon to mash the leaves and release the flavor. Let sit for at least a half hour to let the flavors marry.

Meanwhile, take a very sharp paring knife and cut three small slashes, or pockets on the tops of each pork chop. Cut them at sixty-degree angles being carful not to poke all the way through the meat. Using your fingers, stuff the rosemary mixture down into the slashes. Press down on the openings to close them up.

Grill the chops as you would normally. Try to grill on the slashed side only once, so you don’t lose any of the mixture.