Breakfast

Pork Chop with Mac & Cheese
If you’ve been following my posts recently, I’ve been doing a lot of “pork chop experimentation” trying to find the way to make pork chops come out in a terrifically tender medium doneness without burning the outside to a crisp but it's always been pretty frustrating because the stove top can be pretty inconsistent.

Instead today I took a page from my steak cooking method and preheated the oven to 325°F and then after browning the chop for two minutes on each side over medium heat in my stainless steel pan lightly coated with safflower oil, I basted it with the leftover oil and transferred it to the oven for 20 minutes making sure to flip and baste again halfway through.

20 minutes later, the pork chop came out cooked exactly to 145°F. It was totally juicy and tender, just the way every good homemade pork chop should be now that the USDA has lowered their recommended temperature to something actually reasonable.

Normally I only take photos of food right after it was cooked but I wanted to show the texture of the meat.


Click to enlarge.

Delicious. :9

The pork chop was seasoned with a homemade barbecue mixture consisting of chili powder, sugar, ground cumin, smoked paprika, ground cayenne pepper, sea salt and mixed peppercorns half an hour before cooking and left on the counter to come up to room temperature. It was served with leftover macaroni and cheese which was reconstituted in a saucepan with organic 2% milk and the drippings accumulated in the oven pan from the pork chop. It pretty much regained its original texture and, of course, it was delicious, too, but not really the focus. Coming up tomorrow: leftover pork chop and mac and cheese omelet!