Help me cook tender pork, please

[Michael M]

I'm not a big meat eater, and thus, though I feel more than competent using meat as a flavoring in other dishes, cooking the actual piece of meat usually befuddles me. Chicken I can do. Pork, I fail at. Miserably. Tough But Flavorful is what I usually end up with. Here's an example. Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Two 1" thick pork loin chops, bone in. Marinade in a wine-based liquid (with salt) for 12 hours. Pat dry. Fry on each side for 3 minutes or so to get a little browning, then toss marinade in pan, cover, stick in oven for an hour or so. I've tried every temp between 225 and 300 with various times in the oven.

Each time yields a flavorful but tough piece of meat. What’s they key to

[robert40]

Your problem has more to do with the quality of pork these days then your technique.

Try to find a good source for Berkshire pork like Eden and a few others.

http://www.betterpork.com/edenfarms/edenfarms/

[rooftop1000]

Dont do that to pork loin

Shoulder chops might be able to handle that abuse...

That loin chop was just about done after you seared it.

tracey

[Marlene]

Tracey's right. The only meats that benefit from long slow cooking are meats with lots of connective tissue to break down. Pork chops just don't have it. Short high sear, after brining should do it.

[robert40]

rooftop1000 makes a good point also as your cooking time is a bit long.

Also likely your marinade/salt mixture is pulling moisture out of an already lean cut.

[Michael M]

Ah, I see. So does one typically not use salt in a marinade for chops that are more meaty and less fatty?

Shoulder chops. Have to look into that.

[Marlene]

You should use salt, but thin cuts like pork chops don't need much more than a couple of hours at most of brining.

[rxrfrx]

A 1" thick chop needs less than an hour of brining, but that's not the issue, as people have already pointed out. The cooking time for a 1" chop is 5 minutes or less on each side in a hot pan.

Do you overcook all your meats this much?

[snowangel]

Today's pork is so lean that overcooking is very easy to do. The old rule was cook a roast to 160 internal temp. I usually take it off at 130 or just above and then let it rest.

[amccomb]

I can't think of any cut of meat that I cook for an hour. If I'm doing something like pork shoulder, I usually cook long and slow - several hours at maybe 250. If I'm doing something like pork loin, it's a couple of minutes to maybe half an hour, depending on the thickness. It's gotta be pink in the middle! Too bad I have a few friends who refuse to eat pork that's still pink, but hey, more for me and my husband.

[tsquare]

Braise pork butt and you will be a convert.

[bushey]

I use a dry rub and grill pork loin using the indirect method and it comes out perfect. Total time needed is about 30 minutes.

[jayt90]

I'm not a big meat eater, and thus, though I feel more than competent using meat as a flavoring in other dishes, cooking the actual piece of meat usually befuddles me.  Chicken I can do.  Pork, I fail at.  Miserably.  Tough But Flavorful is what I usually end up with.  Here's an example.  Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Two 1" thick pork loin chops, bone in.  Marinade in a wine-based liquid (with salt) for 12 hours.  Pat dry.  Fry on each side for 3 minutes or so to get a little browning, then toss marinade in pan, cover, stick in oven for an hour or so.  I've tried every temp between 225 and 300 with various times in the oven.

Each time yields a flavorful but tough piece of meat.  What’s they key to

←

The recommendations for shoulder and butt are excellent, and great for your method, but if you still want lean, clean loin chops this way, they will have to be cut much thicker, 2-2.5".

Use a meat thermometer to get them out at 140F, and the temp will rise to 160F as they rest for a few minutes. And they'll be tender and juicy, though it may not take a full hour in a moderate oven. (Your temp range seems a bit low, and may dry out the thin chops.)

[Michael M]

Ok, I came to the right people here. Thanks for all this help. I didn't realize loin chops were so lean!

[mtigges]

Listen to TSquare.

I LOVE braising. But have stuck to beef and lamb for the most part. Last week I braised a pork shoulder roast, and it was amazing.

I used a tart apple and rosemary, and the liquid was apple cider vinegar, juice of a lemon, chicken stock and ketchup. I would have used tomato paste, but I didn't have any.

It was incredible. Very tender, but very filling too.

[Torrilin]

Ok, what you need is a cookbook that gives you diagrams of the animal and walks you through what cuts are good for what. This is a basic reference that every cook should have, as the names of cuts are not always standard. Parts of the animal that get lots of excersise are usually best braised.

A pork chop is roughly equivilent to a steak in a cow. Think Tbone or porterhouse. If you compare the marbling in the steak to the marbling in your pork chop, you'll see that the steak has a lot more fat proportionally compared to the pork. Most pork would not qualify for anything but the worst possible USDA grades for beef, so it's very tricky to cook and get a good end result.

If you want to do braised dishes, use cuts from the shoulder or other heavily excersised muscles. There's lots of fat and connective tissue, so braising will give good results. Ribs also tend to be very good braised. It doesn't matter whether it's beef or pork or lamb or goat, the techniques are pretty similar.

Emily

[Michael M]

Excellent. Thanks!

[k43]

Here's a never-fail method I learned from the NY Times many years ago:

- Pan fry pork chops 4 minutes on each side.

- Turn off the heat, cover the pan tightly and let it sit for 12 minutes.

This retains the natural liquid. For me, brining just adds water.

Add a little water or wine to the pan, scrape up the fond and reduce with small amounts of sweet spices (allspice, cinnamon, ground cloves).

[godito]

Brining is great to add additional flavors. If you're just using salt and water, though, like k43 said, you're just adding water. Use herbs in your brine, or different liquids.

The biggest problem is the lack of fat in today's pork. It IS the other white meat, and should be treated like you would chicken breast (so easily overcooked). The methods described above are all really good. Again, listen to k43 about resting the meat for a while before cutting it to let the juices set.

Another good way might be poaching. I've had pork loin poached in milk and it was fantastic. I've never done that myself, basically because everytime I buy pork I go for the shoulder (or ribs) instead of the loin.

And the bacon, always the bacon...........................

[Lee Ratliff]

Snowangel and subsequent posters are correct. Most people overcook pork thinking it needs to be well-done (or ultra-done). Slightly pink is OK. Once you start cooking pork correctly, you'll find that you don't even need to brine in most cases. Overcooking pork is a legacy of trichinosis, a nasty parasitic disease that you don't want to get. However, trichinosis has practically been eliminated from the commercial pork supply in developed countries. According to Wikipedia, only about 12 cases per yr have been reported in the US in recent years and most of those are from undercooked game, not pork. Also, freezing kills the parasite that causes trichinosis and most pork has been frozen.

[JohnL]

Some good recommendations in this thread.

Pork is either a low and slow meat of high and fast.

It should be served slightly pink.

Also meat when removed from the heat is still cooking for a few minutes.

You need to remove your pork from the heat when it is slightly underdone.

This is where a lot of pork (and especially fish) end up over cooked.

Also thick cut pork chops need to rest (same as for steak) so the juices redistribute.

Sear them on each side then use indirect heat to finish them.

Pork tenderloins are one of the best and easiest to prepare -especially on a grill.

If you pull em off the heat at the right time they are almost foolproof and are incredibly juicy.

Chris Schlessinger's "Thrill of the Grill" has some great pork recipes and advice.