Mar

5

Quick and Juicy Pork Chops

Filed Under Cooking Tips by vinojoe|

We keep hearing about “other white meat”, how it is so lean and healthy and delicious. At least, that is what the National Pork Board keeps telling us. Mmmm … how do you get a job there? Can you imagine being at a party, introducing yourself, “Hi, I’m Jane, and I work for the Daily Pork!”

Don’t laugh, there IS such a publication. However, don’t trust The Daily Pork when it comes to sauteeing pork chops.

The recommendation is that you pre-heat a skillet with oil and then cook the chops — pretty much standard procedure. However, if you follow that traditional way of cooking meat, you often end up with dry, chewy, chalky-tasting slabs of what resembles meat. The key to juicy pork chops — meaning something you don’t have to drown in apple sauce — is to apply the exact opposite method of cooking them.

Why can’t you cook pork in the same way you cook, say, beef (for example)? Science — and biology in particular. Pork is different from beef, especially when it comes to protein structure and amino acid chains. Without getting too technical, the gist of it is this: high heat kills pork chops. Pork proteins break down at least twice before reaching the 160-degree mark (that’s the “safe” temperature for cooking pork). They’ll break down again if you continue cooking beyond 165. Every time the proteins break down, they release water — and thus you lose the juicy-ness. So if you start cooking pork on high heat, you immediately start breaking down the protein and drying out the meat.

The trick, therefore, is to bring pork chops to the ultimate 160-degree temperature slowly. In fact, start with a cold pan. Sounds crazy, I know, but trust me on this one. Brush some oil on the chops, put them in the pan, put the pan on the stove, turn the burner on to medium. Keep a meat thermometer next to the stove and check the temperature for doneness every few minutes. The best way to check is to use tongs to pick a chop out of the pan, and insert the thermometer into the side of the chop (precious juice will run out if you stab the chop with a fork to pick it up).


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