As a child, I generally have memories of the pork loin chop (overcooked) or pork roast, served on Sundays in lieu of beef pot roast. I never remember it being anything special. So, no romantic childhood memories of pork dinners for this blog! Lately, it's been bothering me. I generally try and elevate even weekday dinners to at least something worthy of a mid-level bistro. But the fact is, I generally arrive home from work around 7-8 and it's hard to create magic when you haven't been home all day. And my wife loves the pork chop. Often I will finish mine to look over and find her plate with nothing but a bare bone left. She generally then proceeds to remove any trace of porkiness that I may have left on my bones.
First, let me discuss some basics of the pork chop: It's generally best to perfect the basic French sear-bake technique. This is generally the technique that can be used for most fish, meat, poultry, and even eggs. It's best to have your chops prepared by drying them off, coating with a thin coat of olive oil, salt and pepper, and then allowing them to have rested up to room temperature. Proceed with a fairly hot stainless steel skillet or saute. Place the pork chops, without overcrowding, in the pan and do not move them for at least three minutes. Reduce heat if there is excess smoking. You do want a little bit of smoke to know that things are proceeding correctly. The object is to achieve a nice caramely brown sear on the entire bottom surface of the pork chop. Your pork chop may stick at first, but do not despair. The sugars will caramelize, a crust will form, and then the chop will release from the stainless steel. Trust me. Flip the chop and drop into a preheated 425F oven for 5-7 minutes until the pork chop comes up to an internal temperature of 145F. Any hotter and your chop will have perished. I actually pull mine at 135F, tent with aluminum foil and then let the carryover heat rest them up to 145F.
While a heritage breed pork chop, like the Berkshire hogs pictured at the top of this post taste absolutely delicious this way, the standard pork chops from Costco do not have such rewards. They need a bit of coaxing and that is where a quick weekday brine has come in to save the day! I've used a brine here not only for flavor, but also for ease of thawing and timing of dinner.
I am not always the biggest fan of brine. Quite frankly, it's cumbersome and I don't think that it always optimizes the flavor of the meat. Sometimes it just makes the meat taste cured and I don't always enjoy that effect. For a traditional brine one mixes water, salt, sugar, and aromatics such as mirepoix, garlic, herbs, and citrus and brings them just to a boil. Then one proceeds by removing the brine from the heat and then it has to be absolutely chilled before putting the meat in which then must brine for 8-72 hours. I really don't have that kind of time in the morning when I'm heading out the door. Another problem when thawing meat for dinner is this: If you simply put it in the fridge, it will still be frozen when you come home at 7 in the evening. You could leave it on the counter, but then you risk it sitting in the room temperature window for far too long, risking food safety.
So, I did three things by adapting a recipe from Anne Burrell: I stopped heating the brine, I removed all the aromatics in the brine process, and I added fennel pollen to my spice cabinet. Not only does this add flavor, and save time and money, (all the aromatics cost $$$), it fine tuned the thawing process to be safe and time effective. This way, the pork chops are perfectly brined and thawed by the time I return home in the evening and there is no risk of food safety by leaving them on the counter.
So here goes: I've already described to you the sear and bake technique of cooking above. Use that. I'm just going to go over my quick cold brine process. Place 2-4 frozen or thawed rib or t-bone pork chops in a 2 qt sealable container. I prefer a Cambro container. Pour over 1/2 c. kosher salt (no you cannot substitute any other kind) and 1/3 c. sugar. Fill the container all the way to the top with cold water and seal the container. Over the kitchen sink, shake the container until all the sugar and salt is even distributed throughout the water and the pork chops. Put this in the for at least six hours. Or you can leave for up to a couple days if your evening plans change. Note that not all the sugar and salt will have dissolved. Don't worry about this. Proceed with the cooking technique described above aiming for a nice rosy medium finish in the center of the chop/near the bones.
You'll have noticed that I subtracted the aromatics from the brining process. That's because it saves time by removing the need to heat the brine and saves money by not dumping a whole bunch of flavors into the brine. It's kind of a shortcut but the flavors imparted during the brining process are so subtle, I think it's much more cost effective to simply add them just before serving. For my recipe, after I flip the pork chops and before I put them into the oven to finish, I dust them with black pepper, fennel pollen, and crushed red pepper. (If you're grilling out, coat the fat rind of the chop with the fennel pollen before grilling, don't sprinkle it on the flat side or it will burn.) It makes them come out of the oven smelling and tasting like Italian sausages, this "sausage" effect is only furthered by the juicy texture imparted by the brine process. Note that you do not need to salt the pork chops as you normally would because you've already done so in the brine process. Another option is to whip up a quick garlic/lemon/EVOO vinaigrette and brush this onto the chops as they come out of the oven. With this vinaigrette technique in conjunction with the cold brine process, you will never miss the fact that you omitted aromatics from the brine. Enjoy. Please leave any questions or comments below.
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