Think of Food Safety First

• Pork comes with several food safety concerns. In addition to E. coli and salmonella -- bacteria common to many types of food, pork can also carry trichinosis. Cooking the pork to 145 degrees Fahrenheit destroys these contaminants if they are present. But you must avoid cross-contaminating the meat with something that came in contact with the pork before you cooked it. You must cook foods that come in contact with raw pork to 145 F to prevent them from cross-contaminating the meat if you use them during the cooking process.

Braise With Marinade

• Sugar and other marinade ingredients that contain natural sugars caramelize and scorch quickly, especially over an open flame or at high heat. Consider the effect the cooking method and time will have on the marinade before you use it to baste pork. It is safe to cook pork tips in marinade as long as both components are cooked together the entire time and reach 145 F. The low, indirect heat you use to braise meat is unlikely to burn the marinade before the pork tips finish cooking.

Boil Used Marinade

• The most common way to use marinade later in the cooking process is to baste the meat with the mixture to keep it moist. If you basted the meat with the used marinade, you would essentially be brushing raw pork all over the surface of cooked pork, rendering the meat unsafe. To eliminate any possible contaminants in the marinade before basting with it, boil the mixture after you remove the raw pork from it. Like the meat itself, the marinade must reach 145 F. After that, it is safe to baste the pork throughout the cooking process and serve the mixture as a finishing sauce, if you wish.

Save Fresh Marinade

• Divide the marinade before you soak the uncooked pork in it. Reserve some of the mixture to baste with, and store it separately from the uncooked pork while it marinates so it is not contaminated. Discard the used portion of the marinade after you remove the raw pork from it.