I know pork chops are leaner than they used to be and hence older recipes will turn out dried hockey pucks if you’re not careful. I have a few good recipes that consistently turn out moist chops. But I’ve been reading about brining and have brined pork tenderloin with good results before and thought to try it with pork chops last night. I just brined them for an hour.
Brine for Pork Chops
Ingredients
- 1 quart water
- 4 Tbs kosher salt
- 2 Tbs sugar
- 5 whole cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp celery seed
- juice of one orange plus the rinds
Instructions
- Mix the brine ingredients together and stir until the salt and sugar dissolves.
I mixed this all up in my big 2 quart Pyrex bowl and then dropped the chops in and refrigerated for an hour.
Afterwards, I dredged them in seasoned flour (salt and pepper) and fried them in shortening. These were thick bone-in chops. I cooked them about 5 minutes on one side, then 5 minutes on the other side so they were browned well. I covered the pan and cooked another 5 minutes. You’d need to vary this of course with thinner chops. These were about 3/4″ thick.
They were quite tasty! I think next time though I’ll brine them and cook them my normal method, sauteing them in the pan with less fat and then doing a sauce with some wine and mustard and capers.
I did the same thing but dipped the brined chops in heavy cream and an egg mixes together and then coated them with garlic powder,bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, and flour mixture, then set the coated chops back in frig for a half hour before cooking in half canola oil and half olive oil.
Prolly the best pork chop I ever ate.