table talk / By Joseph Byrd

How To Cook Supermarket Pork Chops

(Jan. 21, 2010)  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The greed of the American pork industry has messed with the modern day pig to the point that almost all available pork is now so lean it has lost the ability to be tender.

It isn’t hard to trace the switch to lean pork in the U.S. It was the result of an aggressive (and effective) 1990s ad campaign for pork as “the other white meat,” together with an industry-wide decision to engage in commodity pork factories that produced a high-volume, low-fat product. (See “The Death of Pork,” Table Talk Oct. 23, 2008.) The end result is pallid meat-counter pork, usually pumped full of brine, that ends up dry and tasteless when cooked. “Heirloom” pork is very expensive and nearly impossible to track down. (See “Pork II: A New Hope,” Table Talk Oct. 30, 2008.)

GALLERY >

That said, there are a handful of distributors of free-range pork, among them Pendleton Farms, a brand carried by the Co-op and Eureka Natural Foods. Once in a while we find a couple of well-marbled pork chops that I cook more or less following the recipe for “Julia Child’s Sautéed Pork Chops” (from Julia & Jacques Cooking At Home), but most pork is far too dry to cook traditionally.

Not long ago, Cook’s Magazine‘s Bridget Lancaster addressed the problem: “Dry, tough pork chops are the reality,” she says. “My dream was juicy, tender pork chops in 20 minutes.”

It’s her basic method I’m advocating here. The good news is, it works; the bad news is, you need a meat thermometer, preferably one that reads instantly. (Hensel’s Ace Hardware’s new kitchenware department in Arcata has several choices.) This recipe gets a boost from F Street Café chef Dan McHugh, who added apples and Dijon mustard.

First, you need bone-in chops — boneless cook up too dry. Also, thicker is better — 5/8 to 1 inch.

Savory Pork Chops with Pippin Apple and Mustard

4 thick bone-in supermarket pork chops

1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE >SHARE