Ina Garten-Inspired Pork Chops

Compiled by Igor Kukolj, Editor. Nobody here has cooked this — how these are made.

Dry pork chops are not a cooking failure. They are the result of following advice that stopped being true fifteen years ago.

The USDA lowered its recommendation for whole cuts of pork from 71°C to 63°C with a three-minute rest, in 2011. The old figure existed because of trichinosis, which has been effectively absent from commercial pork for decades. At 63°C a chop is faintly pink at the centre, juicy, and safe. At 71°C it is grey and it has squeezed out most of its water.

Almost every home cook still aims for the old number, usually without knowing there is a new one.

Brine them for half an hour

Modern pork is bred lean, which means there is very little fat to buffer a few extra minutes of heat. Thirty minutes in a simple salt solution changes that: the muscle takes on water and salt, and salted proteins hold onto moisture far better under heat. It buys you a margin the meat does not have on its own.

Buy them thick

A 1.5 cm chop goes from raw to overdone in about ninety seconds and there is no way to get a crust on it in that time. Ask for chops cut 4 cm thick. They cost the same per kilo and they are a completely different thing to cook.

Sear the fat edge

Hold the chops on their side with tongs so the strip of fat along the edge renders and browns. It takes a minute, it stops the fat being the chewy bit everyone cuts off, and it leaves you a pan of pork fat to baste with.

Storing

Three days. Sliced cold in a sandwich is the best use of leftovers; reheating a lean chop takes it straight past the point this whole page is about.