The Butcher Shoppe - Pork Chops

As you probably know, the dietary do-gooders have villified fat so much that today's pork is much leaner's than your grandpa's pork. I recently saw a 1940's era picture (the golden era when pork consumption in the U.S. exceeded beef consumption) of a typical farm pig alongside a photo of a modern day pig and it was like looking at old and current pictures of Oprah. The modern pig was svelte while the classic pig was corpulent and jowely, like we all remember from the storybooks. So today's slender pork is dry, tough and flavorless. Perhaps a more truthful slogan would be "the other bland white meat". To make things worse, most recipes gravely instruct us to cook pork to an internal temperature of 160 degrees for "safety" (they don't mention parasites but that's what they mean). Cooking to 160 ensures any subtle flavors and precious juices that might have been in the meat originally are long gone and the worrisome parasites that don't really exist in modern pork anymore are surely dead and safe to eat. To counteract act these problems we do have a few choices: 1) eat only pork shoulder, ham, bacon and sausage that have enough fat to make them worthwhile and forego pork chops and roasts 2) hunt down heirloom pork that is raised by a few pig farmers in NY and who knows where else and pay a fortune to have it shipped 3) brine lean pork in a salt water solution before cooking to retain some moisture and to add some flavor 4) buy factory farm pork (i.e. Hormel) that has been pumped with some funky sodium phosphate solution to simulate good pork, which just makes it taste weird I advocate options 1 and 3 and I'm looking closely into 2 but recommend against 4. In the context of this current state of pork I entered the local butcher shoppe a few days ago. The glass case was littered with papers promoting different cuts of meat for sale but inside were only chuck roasts and a few other random beef cuts. I wasn't sure if they were out of most things but I asked the butcher if they had any pork chops available. "Sure!" He almost jumped out of his apron. I said I didn't see any in the case and he explained they cut them to order, any thickness I wanted. Hearing this, I felt my knees buckle a little and I asked for two bone in chops, about an inch and a half thick. A minute later I watched as he toted around a long rack of pork to the band saw for cutting. Two thick-cut rib chops weighed in at nearly two pounds and at $4.99/pound I felt I was getting my money's worth. As I mentioned earlier, this was the first real meal I cooked in our new house with our new cooking equipment so I was excited to make anything. I brined the chops in saltwater (about 1/3 cup salt and four cups of water) for about an hour, dried them off, salted them generously then seared them in a hot pan with a little corn oil for about 3 minutes a side. They developed a beautiful golden crust but were obviously far from done so I placed them on a cookie sheet in the preheated oven (350 degrees-convection roast) while I finished the potatoes. I deglazed the chop pan with some cognac then added sour cream when the chops were coming out of the oven. The critical mistake I made was splashing in a little extra cognac at the very end to moisten up the quickly drying pan sauce. Adding an alcohol so late does not give it time to burn off most of the alcohol flavor and leaves it with a sharp, unpleasant taste. I tried to simmer it down but I knew I blew it. lightly coated the chops with the sauce, knowing it wasn't great. One key was pulling the chops out of the oven at the right time. I've been burned by putting too much trust in my instant read thermometer so now I use it to give me an indication but ultimately trust my instincts. I push on the chop (or whatever meat) to feel the resistance. The finger push method merits an entry of its own, which I will work on soon. These chops spent about 12 minutes in the 350 oven after the pan searing and rested for about five. They were cooked perfectly. Overall the chops were outstanding. I don't know where the butcher gets his pork and maybe the thick cut and brining had something to do with it but they were some of the best pork chops I've ever had (not the sauce - it was marginal) . They had that unctuous, bacon-like richness that good pork has. The flavor was milder than the shoulder or ham cuts and it was moist unlike supermarket chops. I suspect the internal temperature peaked out at about 140 degrees and was lower against the bone but I'm not worried about trichonosis. I'll be back at the butcher shoppe soon to pay my compliments and pay for another package of something delicious.