The Best Pork Chop You'll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality)

Epicurious

In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto demonstrates how to make the best pork chops you've ever had at home.

Transcript

00:00 I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor.

00:02 And today I'm gonna show you how to make

00:03 a restaurant quality pork chop

00:05 with a silky, velvety pan sauce.

00:08 With a few key techniques,

00:09 your pork chop will be juicy and succulent every time.

00:13 This is Pork Chop 101.

00:15 Before we start cooking anything,

00:16 I want you to pay attention to this pork chop.

00:18 This chop we have here is a center cut pork chop,

00:21 bone in, fat cap left on.

00:23 And that fat is edible, people.

00:26 Some would say the fat is the best part.

00:28 Who's ready to cook this beautiful pork chop?

00:30 This guy.

00:31 Let's get started.

00:32 [upbeat music]

00:35 When you go through the trouble

00:36 to get a beautiful cut of meat like this,

00:38 you want the meat to shine.

00:39 I keep the seasoning simple, salt and pepper.

00:42 I wanna taste the pork.

00:44 When it comes to seasoning,

00:45 you wanna get your pork chop nice and dry.

00:47 Moisture is the enemy of a good sear

00:49 and a nice brown crust on the outside.

00:51 And I'm gonna go a nice dusting of pepper.

00:53 So you see how I'm holding this pepper mill up high?

00:56 The higher you go, the better dispersion you get.

00:59 And then I'm gonna get my salt

01:00 and I'm gonna go pretty heavy on the salt, right?

01:03 The inside of our pork chop isn't seasoned.

01:05 So when we cut that slice,

01:07 we're gonna get that nice salty crust

01:09 and that nice juicy interior.

01:11 And do the other side, give it a little dab,

01:13 season it up, fair amount of salt

01:16 and get that fat seasoned too

01:17 'cause we're gonna give a little bit of brownness

01:19 to this as well.

01:20 Before this goes in the pan,

01:21 we're gonna dab it again

01:22 to make sure there's no more moisture

01:24 and then we can sear.

01:25 (upbeat music)

01:28 First step is to get our pan hot.

01:30 I'm gonna go for a medium high heat

01:33 and I'm gonna add some vegetable oil, a neutral oil,

01:36 something with not a lot of flavor

01:37 that's just gonna help us brown that pork chop.

01:39 I want the pan to have a nice coating of oil.

01:42 When it's getting ready to go,

01:43 you'll see that it kind of gets shimmery and ripply

01:46 and you'll see just a little bit of smoke coming off.

01:49 One last time, I'm gonna dab my pork chop off.

01:52 I'm gonna put it in the pan and drop it away from me

01:55 so that I don't get splashed with hot oil.

01:57 This point, I can lower just a little

01:59 because I see I got a lot of smoke there.

02:01 So I'm just gonna let it go for a few minutes.

02:03 Similar to a steak, you can cook this pork chop

02:05 to a medium temperature

02:06 and that's gonna ensure that it's juicy and delicious.

02:08 I'm not gonna turn it until I see

02:10 that I'm starting to get brown on the bottom side.

02:12 So what you could do is just give it a little peek.

02:15 How we looking there, boys?

02:16 At this point, I'm gonna give it a turn,

02:19 getting some nice browning there

02:21 and we're gonna let it sear on this side for a few minutes,

02:23 maybe about three to four minutes.

02:25 This point, once I get a little brown on both sides,

02:28 I'm gonna hold it on the fat side

02:29 to render that fat out a little.

02:31 What that helps us do is take some of the moisture

02:33 out of the fat and make it more delicious.

02:36 The pork chop at this point is not at all cooked,

02:38 but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get

02:39 some of that searing fat off,

02:41 put my pork chop back in the pan

02:43 and I'm gonna add butter, a couple of sprigs of thyme

02:47 and some crushed garlic.

02:49 And what this is gonna do is it's gonna start

02:51 to flavor our pork chop.

02:52 So I'm gonna tilt it and get all that butter

02:55 and thyme and garlic and I'm gonna baste my pork chop.

02:59 Basically when we baste, we're putting fat or juices

03:02 over the top of our pork chop.

03:03 Our garlic gets brown and fragrant,

03:05 our butter gets nice and brown and nutty

03:08 and this all transfers to the crust on our pork chop.

03:11 When you're cooking a thick piece of meat like this,

03:15 you wanna get yourself an instant read thermometer.

03:17 What I like to do is go really close to the bone

03:20 'cause closest to the bone is gonna be

03:21 the last piece that cooks.

03:23 I'm probably looking for about 135, 140 degrees.

03:27 We're at about 120.

03:28 So we're gonna let it go for a minute or two more.

03:31 All right, I think we're good here.

03:33 I'm gonna take my pork chop out

03:35 and you can see that I have a resting rack over here.

03:37 I'm gonna let it rest for about five to seven minutes

03:39 so those juices can redistribute.

03:41 This gives us time to make our pan sauce.

03:43 [upbeat music]

03:46 First thing we wanna do with our pan sauce

03:48 is get rid of this used up butter and oil.

03:50 I'm just gonna take this, put it into this bowl.

03:53 What's cool about the pan is though,

03:54 we have all these little brown bits.

03:56 That's called the fond, F-O-N-D.

03:59 And we wanna keep that in the pan.

04:01 That is our flavor base for our sauce.

04:04 So we're gonna turn our pan back on,

04:05 kind of a medium heat,

04:07 and we're gonna put some fresh oil in.

04:08 And then we start with the aromatics.

04:10 I'm starting out with some shallots, just a little salt.

04:13 Salt will bring out some of the moisture in the shallots.

04:16 I like using shallots for my pan sauce.

04:17 I think they got a little bit of a finer flavor than onions.

04:20 And you'll notice that I didn't add my garlic at this point.

04:23 Shallots take a little longer than garlic to cook.

04:25 And if I added my garlic and shallots at the same time,

04:28 they would burn.

04:29 I'm gonna add my thyme.

04:30 I'm gonna add a little chopped garlic.

04:32 And we're just gonna cook this

04:33 so it's fragrant and not raw.

04:35 Now we have a little bit of browning

04:36 on our shallots and our garlic.

04:39 So I'm using apple brandy in this,

04:41 and that's my preference.

04:42 I like the flavor of apples.

04:43 If you like apple cider, apple cider vinegar,

04:47 beer, wine, you can use any of those to deglaze the pan.

04:49 Take a step back.

04:50 [pan sizzling]

04:53 I'm gonna add some whole grain mustard to this.

04:56 And I'm gonna extinguish the flame

05:00 with a little bit of heavy cream.

05:01 Maybe a lot of heavy cream.

05:04 If that makes you nervous, use something lower in alcohol.

05:07 Brandy is high in alcohol, so you get a lot of fire.

05:10 White wine, use beer, use cider, cider vinegar.

05:14 All of those have a little more water content,

05:15 you're not gonna get any flame.

05:17 Now if your heavy cream is super thick,

05:18 we're gonna take a little bit of chicken stock

05:20 and just thin it out and let the sauce come together.

05:23 So we have the fond and the chicken stock,

05:24 and that's gonna give us a nice kind of meaty background

05:27 to our sauce.

05:28 Of course, always salt and pepper.

05:30 And then we're gonna let this reduce.

05:32 So at this point, I'm gonna add a little knob of butter.

05:34 And we're just gonna let that butter kind of melt in.

05:37 And the butter's gonna help thicken the sauce a little too,

05:39 as well as give us flavor.

05:41 When our sauce is reducing,

05:42 you'll see the bubbles are really small

05:44 and they're popping like crazy.

05:45 As this gets thicker,

05:47 you're gonna notice the bubbles get bigger and pop slower.

05:49 You can see it here happening, right?

05:51 I'm looking at my bubbles

05:53 to make sure that they are popping slower

05:56 as the consistency gets better.

05:58 The best way to determine that our sauce is done

06:00 is you put a spoon in there,

06:02 you run your finger through it,

06:03 and if you get a nice crisp line,

06:04 your sauce is ready to go.

06:06 We've done all this work to make our sauce beautiful,

06:11 our pork chop perfect.

06:13 Now's my favorite time.

06:14 Let's get it on a plate and eat it.

06:16 Our sauce is done,

06:17 but I do wanna add some garnish to it.

06:19 So we're gonna brighten it up with a little bit of parsley.

06:22 It's got great flavor, right?

06:23 You wanna make sure you do this at the end

06:25 'cause the parsley will turn brown eventually.

06:28 That's a big pork chop and we need a lot of sauce.

06:30 So I'm gonna put a fair amount of sauce on my plate.

06:33 I'm gonna put my pork chop right on top, right in the sauce.

06:37 I generally don't like to put sauce on top of this

06:39 because I put a lot of effort

06:41 into making this nice and golden brown.

06:43 And there you have it,

06:44 Chef Frank's pork chop with pan sauce.

06:47 Now it's time to cut into this pork chop and give it a taste.

06:51 Let's take a moment here

06:52 just to look how beautiful this is.

06:55 I almost don't wanna cut into it,

06:57 but I'm gonna do it anyway.

06:59 Look at that, right?

07:00 Our pork isn't dry.

07:01 We got a little bit of juiciness to it.

07:04 It's cooked all the way through, right?

07:06 It's not pink, but it is still very juicy.

07:09 Let's get in there.

07:10 I'm gonna take a little piece with the fat.

07:13 I'm gonna dip it in the sauce.

07:14 There is a symphony of flavors going on here.

07:20 Mustard, apples, cream, pork, pork fat.

07:25 Everything together is just fantastic.

07:28 Cooking is a lot about technique and the process of cooking,

07:31 but at the end of the day, you gotta put some love in it.

07:34 And this pork chop is all love.

07:36 Lots of butter and cream too.

07:37 (bell ringing)

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