Today my Dad brought me a 4kg Angus Ribeye Roll and 4.5kg worth of French-cut lamb racks.  My heart almost palpitated with excitement as I opened up the bag to take a look at them.  Beautiful!  They are now parked in the fridge together with the 6kg turkey which is thawing.  One would think I am planning to feed 40.  But it’s actually closer to 20.  Can’t wait to start cooking!

I also learnt something today. You know, other than the Hainanese kind., the H and I are not fans of pork chops. Unlike beef, pork has to be eaten well-done, so it seems that most of the time, pork chops turn out to be somewhat tough.  However, today I discovered that marinating pork chops in a milk brine for an hour before cooking will make them juicy and tender.

As I said, the kids are into potatoes at the moment, so I’ve been thinking up mains to go with potatoes.  They were so taken by the Chicken Cordon Bleu we had the other day that they were hankering for more.  So I thought I’d do some breaded pork chops today.

Breaded Pork Chops with Sauteed Potatoes and Chinese Greens

I used the Pork Chops and Applesauce recipe at epicurious.com, but I had neither apples nor bottled applesauce so we had it neat, with sliced potatoes sauteed in butter, and Chinese greens stir fried with olive oil.  I knew from the recipe that the pork chops would be flavourful because of the garlic, rosemary and thyme which went into the breadcrumb mix, but we were really very pleasantly surprised at how juicy and tender the meat was.  I think we can attribute this to the milk brine bath.

I had to tweak the recipe since we were only having 6 pork chops.  I also used dried breadcrumbs (panko) instead of fresh, and I upped the minced garlic (doubled it) because that’s what I always do – up the garlic.  I also felt the need to omit the butter because, based on the thickness of the pork chops, I thought it would be difficult to get the meat cooked through without burning the butter and blackening the crust.  The cooking time had to be adjusted as well – I cooked them for about 6 minutes on each side on medium heat, which was perfect.  So in the end, this was it:

Recipe for Pork Chops

Ingredients
2 cups milk
3 tsp salt
6 (1/2 inch) pork chops
2 cups panko (dried breadcrumbs)
2 tbs minced garlic
2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary or 1/2 tsp dried, crumbled
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp dried, crumbled
3-4 tbs olive oil

Method
Marinate Pork Chops:
Stir milk and 2 tsp salt in a shallow dish, then add pork chops.  Marinate, covered and chilled, turning over once, for at least 1 hour.

Fry Pork Chops: 
Stir together bread crumbs, garlic, rosemary and thyme, and 1 tsp salt in shallow bowl.
Lift pork chops from milk one at a time, letting excess drip off and dredge in breadcrumbs, lightly patting crumbs to help adhere, then transfer to a tray lined with baking paper, arranging in one layer.
Heat 2-3 tbs olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, then saute pork chops in 2 or 3 batches, without crowding, turning over once, until golden brown and just cooked through, approximately 6 minutes per side. (add more oil to skillet if necessary).