I narrowly avoided cremating the meat course whilst fixing dinner for myself and my lovely and talented roommate Eric tonight. I did not avoid it the other day, when I had to scrape the edible chicken meat out of its cup-shaped burn scar.
Typical incidents in the life of a male university student, you may say. But I wish to put a stop to it. What am I doing wrong? How can I make it so that the meat cooks through without carbonizing it?
My recipe is to put oil in my frying pan, turn it up high, cook it for 90 seconds, flip it, turn the heat down to the middle of the dial, and then cook it for about 10 minutes, or until the inside is done. Just the way papa showed me, and his pork chops always came out perfect. But I always end up with the kitchen filling or filled with smoke. Help!
You might be using the wrong kind of oil. Different oils have different smoke points. Olive oil, peanut oil, and almond oil all have pretty high smoke points. (Around 450 degrees farenheit.) Vegetable oil and canola oil smoke at lower temps. (Under 400 degrees F.)
I might be a little off on the numbers, but that’s the general idea.
I can’t help you with the pan, but for the broiler I cook chops (butterfly, ~1" thick) and steaks 6 minutes to a side for medium. On the preferred barbie, I let the fire burn down and cook’em slow (gives you time for the second glass of wine - yes, I’m cooking dinner right now); watch the upper surface of the meat and flip it when blood spots begin to show on the uncooked side. After flipping, cook for an amount of time equal to what it took to initially flip the meat (if the wine, the fire and the company are good, this may be as much as 10 minutes a side). Modulate if you prefer rare or well done.
While I cannot speak as to how lovely (or talented) Eric is oil type, pan material, thickness and overall heat conductivity and burner temp are all variables that may be quite different than existed in your Dad’s kitchen. If the chops and chicken are burning at 10 minutes… reduce … the … cooking … time.
"It’s not burnt! It’s Cajun!!
Well, the problem with reducing the cooking time is then the chops are still pink in the middle, which when you are discussing pork is a serious no-no.
Instead of turning it down to medium when you flip the pork chop, try turning it down to low and covering the pan. The residual heat will brown the other side and covering the pan will keep everything moist. (This works with chicken breasts, too.)
Try getting a better, thicker frying pan. Sounds to me like you’re using one of those $9.99 Wal-Mart specials–when you turn the heat up high at first, what happens is your frying pan gets too hot almost immediately, so the outside of the chop is black before the inside is cooked.
Get a heavier frying pan (say, $20–you don’t have to go with the $200 gourmet special) and cook the chops on medium-high heat, for about 5 minutes on a side (for normal chops, not extra-thick).
Also, to cook pork chops you shouldn’t really need a lot of oil–just spray some Pam in there (or use a non-stick pan). As they cook, enough fat will render out so they don’t stick. Extra oil sometimes contributes to the excess blackening because the meat juice comes out and then just sits there in the oil, burning.
You can keep pork chops from curling up by slashing them through that outside edge part, about a half-inch, at any point along the circumference. They don’t look quite so food-magazine pretty on the plate, but it’s easier to mash them down in the pan with the spatula so they cook evenly, and you avoid that annoying cup shape.
Of course, all bets are off if you’re cooking them from frozen, which you should never do with pork chops, because in order to get them cooked to food safety condition, you have to cook them long enough so that all the juice is out of them, and then you might as well use them for hockey pucks.
Duck: Thanks for the tip. My frying pan cost $Cdn20 from Canadian Tire, but Eric can usually get good things to come out of it. Should I be using the slightly snottier-looking frying pan that came with my cookware set? It’s got a centimetre-thick, lethal-looking metal bottom.
The operative word here is “papa”. Back in the good old days pork was (a) very fatty and (b) subject to Trichinosis infestation (don’t snicker, you can’t spell it either).
Pork, these days is (a) much leaner and (b) not fulla creepy crawlies. Cut the temp and time in half and cook it 'til it’s just a tad pink in the middle.
JBENZ: I suppose. But then again, the good old days were seven months ago when I was still living at home. And his methods were working then.
Cher: I tried your method, and it was pretty good (I’m eating it now), but a little overcooked, which is probably more my fault than yours. I’ll try it again.
Personally, I always wait till mine are gray in the middle. If you’ve cooked it at medium-high, or used Cher3’s method, it shouldn’t be all dried out. Slice one open to check.
Also, remember that most college apartments have cheap electric stoves. Just because you turn the heat down (or off) doesn’t mean the heat actually leaves. The burner will remain hot for a looooong period of time. Therefore, even though you turn the dial down to medium (after cooking on high), the burner is still putting out “high” heat.
Even if Papa’s stove is electric, it may be more responsive than the one in your apartment.
Personally, I prefer cooking with gas. When you turn the fire off, the heat leaves (mostly). It’s a much better deal. Cheaper, too.
As mentioned above, the pan may be the most likely culprit. Also, today’s pork is much leaner than yester-year’s. I recently read a column where the chef marinates the pork chops in brine for 4 hours to make the chops a little more tender, then cooks them on a grill on high heat for 90 seconds and then slides them over to the unlit side of the grill for another 10 minutes - very similar to papa’s recipe.