About Steve Hanagan Expertise My emphasis is on selecting the highest quality ingredients and preparing them to perfection. Meat specialties include beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and lamb.
Experience I am a self-taught chef who continues to upgrade my skills in all aspects of food preparation. Though I have never worked professionally, I have 20 years of extensive experience in serving crowds from 6 to 125.
Expert: Steve Hanagan Date: 12/1/2005 Subject: Frying pork chops
Question We buy good quality pork chops. Before frying the pork chops, we lightly bread them in a mixture of egg and cracker crumbs.
Some times the pork chops are tough when serving.
Is there a way to make them more tender?
Thjank you in advance; Raymond ligriv36@aol.com
Answer A tough pork chop is the result of being over cooked. This is usually the result of people being overly cautious.
If you are over age 30, you have probably been taught that pork must be cooked to at least 170 degrees in order to be safe to eat. Times have changed. Pork is now considered to be safe to eat at 160 degrees. (To make a long story short, American agriculture has pretty well eradicated Trichinosis, the "bug" that required pork be cooked to within a degree of destruction.)
When you fry pork chops it is difficult to assess when the chop is done. A brown crust means nothing because the extreme heat used will brown the crust in a jiffy, but leaves the center raw. The extreme heat also provides only about a 60 second window of opportunity for you to get the chops out fully cooked, but not over cooked. Even worse, because of transitional heat your chop can be cooked to perfection when you pull it from the pan, but because of the extreme heat on the outer part of the chop the heat continues to soak and over cooks the chop as it is sitting on the serving plate. As the saying goes. "If it is done in the pan, it is over done on the plate."
Here is how you can fix the problem. For a normal 1 inch thick pork chop. Fry it only about 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Just enough to get the crust brown. Then transfer it to a cake rack on a sheet pan sitting in a 325 degree oven. Let it finish cooking in the oven for another 4 to 6 minutes. When it is done, it will be slightly pink inside, and still juicy. If you have an instant read thermometer, look for 158 to 160 degrees.
This lower heat methods not only lets the excess oil drain from the chop, but it gives you a much more forgiving time frame to declare the chop to be done, yet not over cooked. Give it a try. I guarantee you will like the results.
