What you will read here today is the ultimate roast pork chop recipe. I just kind of improvised it this past weekend on a lark, and I was really surprised with how it came out.

Last time, we learned that modern pork tends to come out dry and flavorless, and so today’s pork recipes make attempts to compensate for that. The Cinnamon-Curry Pork recipe did so by loading the pork with flavors and slow cooking it in vinegar to keep it moist. This recipe does pretty much the same thing, going out of our way to keep the meat moist and yummalicious, only this time, we’ll be roasting some pork chops, which is dangerous and could result in disaster. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, you know the quote.

As usual, I’m making a lot of food to keep me fed for the rest of the week, but what you’ll see here is a lot even by that mantra. Don’t feel ashamed if you want to cut the recipe back a bit.

Preheat the oven to 425°.

We’ll start with the potatoes. Cut a couple pounds of red potatoes to whatever size you’re comfortable with putting in your mouth. Toss them with salt, pepper, minced garlic, red pepper, onion powder, dried thyme, and olive oil, then place them into the bottom of a casserole dish large enough to fit all of your pork chops side by side. Put this in the oven while you work on the pork chops.

I used eight thick cut pork chops, about 10 - 12 oz each. Might have been overkill, but at least I don’t have to cook again until next weekend. Using a thin-bladed knife, cut a slit down one of the sides of each chop. I suggest the long side opposite the fat. You want to cut this in such a way that you can open the chop up like a manilla envelope with the flap cut off. It’ll look somewhat disgustingly like a big, fleshy Chinese teacup, or a disembodied vagina.

Important note: Don’t trim the fat off. It will help keep the meat moist. Also, we’re going to be roasting the pork chops on top of the potatoes, which means some of the fat will drip down onto the potatoes. More flavor for you.

Wash your hands. You have trichinosis right now. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, eye swelling, momentary nervous disruptions, and in severe cases, permanent death. Get rid of it.

The more you know.

For herbs, start with fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme. They have these 1 oz. packages of fresh herbs at my supermarket. They proved to be just enough for me. Chop those up, and mix them together with a few cloves of minced garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. You can also add some red pepper if that’s your style. While stirring, slowly add olive oil until the mixture is gooey but not as thick as pesto.

This is the magical part. Spoon some of the herb and oil mixture into each pork chop. As it cooks, the oil will baste it from the inside, which is my new favorite euphemism for sex, and it will bring the flavors from the herbs along with it into the meat.

Take the potatoes out of the oven and lay the stuffed chops on top of them. Brush or drizzle a little bit more oil on top of the chops, and put the whole thing back into the oven for a half-hour.

After the half-hour is up, baste the chops, turn the oven down to 325°, and go back to baking for another thirty minutes. After that, start checking the temperature of the meat every fifteen minutes or so, until an instant read thermometer reads 145° to 150°. It may already be at that point.

Here’s an important aside: You absolutely, positively must not undercook pork, or any meat for that matter. In the case of pork, you want to make sure you don’t ingest any living Trichinella. Some people insist on cooking their pork until it’s well done, but Trichinella dies at 137°, making this unnecessary. 145° is a nice, safe level of doneness that reliably kills the roundworm without turning the pork into cardboard. You may consider this to be gospel.

When the chops are done, remove them from the casserole dish and set them aside to settle down. Put the potatoes back in and turn the heat back up to 425°. Let them brown. If you want, you can save some time by just using the broiler, which is what I did.

Serves a frat.

8 10-12 oz. thick-cut pork chops
2 lbs red potatoes
2 tbsp fresh, chopped rosemary
2 tbsp fresh, chopped sage
2 tbsp fresh, chopped thyme
1 tbsp dried thyme
Ground red pepper to taste
Garlic powder to taste
Onion powder to taste
Salt
Pepper
Minced garlic
3 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 425°.

Cut red potatoes into bite sized pieces. Toss with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme, and 1 tbsp olive oil. Place into large casserole dish. Roast while preparing the pork chops.

Using a thin bladed knife, slice a crevice into each pork chop. Cut longways on the side opposite the fat.

Stir together rosemary, sage, thyme, salt, pepper, garlic, and remaining olive oil. Spoon mixture into the pork chops.

Remove potatoes from the oven. Place pork chops on top of the potatoes. Roast for 30 minutes.

Baste the pork chops with the drippings. Lower heat to 325°. Roast for 30 minutes or until done.

Remove pork chops, return heat to 425°, and roast potatoes until brown. Optionally, brown potatoes under broiler.

Background music was The Shins - Wincing the Night Away

Microwavability: 3/5 - Stays reasonably moist, and retains almost all of its flavor. Show it off to people while it’s fresh, though.

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It’s really hard to make good pork these days. Long, long ago, pig meat was fatty and unhealthy, but it tasted so good. In today’s world, pigs are raised lean, which makes it almost impossible to cook a cut of pork without it coming out dry and flavorless, leading it to be called, contemporarily, The Other White Meat, alluding to the other dry, flavorless mainstream meat known as baby. To compensate for this modern difficiency, many pork recipes are now loaded with flavorful ingredients. This recipe, adapted from Mark Bittman’s Spicy Pork With Cinnamon, found in his sickly fantastic beginner’s cooking bible, How to Cook Everything, is about as loaded as I feel comfortable getting.

One of the really nice things about this dish is that it’s a “fire and forget” recipe. The time that you actually spend getting it going will amount to all of ten minutes. The rest is completely hands off. Very handy if you’ve got other work to do.

I’m not going to bother listing quantities for the ingredients here, because all of it will be relative to how much pork you’re making, and because the spices you’ll be using are all measured “to taste”, which is just a fancy way of saying, “However much you damn well please.”

Keep in mind that this dish is a curry. There is a genetic condition that causes cilantro, the North American name for coriander, whose seed is one of the main ingredients in most curries, to taste extremely bitter to certain individuals. If you have this reaction, then you will not like curry. It’s hereditary, you can’t help it, don’t fight it. You have been warned.

So, you’re going to need some pork. I used loin chops. Shoulder is also supposed to be a good choice. Spice-wise, you’ll use ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground cayenne pepper, ground coriander seed, ground cardamom, a few pinches of ground cloves, and salt and pepper, along with some minced garlic and ginger (I prefer to use fresh ginger, but that’s a pain, so the ground kind is usually just fine), and a finely diced shallot if you feel like it. I’m going to say use your own judgement on amounts for all of those, tending to go heavy on the cinnamon and easy on the cayenne, but if you absolutely must have numbers, you can always get them from the formal version of the recipe, below. Last thing: some mild vinegar. I suggest rice vinegar, which you can find in the international foods aisle. I’m thinking of trying it with rice wine next time — I’ll update you all on how that turns out. Oh, and you’re going to be serving this all over rice, so get your rice cooker ready. You do own a rice cooker, don’t you?

Trim the fat off of the pork and cut it into half-inch to one-inch cube-ish shapes. Set it aside. Wash your disgusting hands.

In a large saute pan over medium heat, saute the garlic, shallot, and all of the spices in olive oil for a few minutes until you can smell it from upstairs. Carefully add in the pork chunks, browning each one on two sides.

Pour in enough vinegar to immerse all of the pork about halfway. Wait for it to come to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and put the lid on. Come back twenty minutes later. The vinegar will slow-cook the pork, infusing the meat with acetic goodness, making it nice and tender. Be careful that you don’t leave the pork cooking for too long. If you cut a piece in half, it should look greyish white with a little bit of juice dribbling out. Too much longer than that, and even the tenderizing services of the vinegar won’t save you from one of the driest meals you’ve ever had.

You now have perfectly cooked pork in a spicy, super flavorful sauce. Serve it over rice. You’ll probably run out of pork before you run out of sauce. Do not pour it down the drain — it’s fantastic by itself with rice. I’m betting it’ll also make a good salad dressing, but I just came up with that off the top of my head midway through the previous sentence.

1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
Ground red pepper to taste
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cardamom
2 - 3 pinches ground cloves
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 shallot, finely diced
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive oil
2 lbs boneless pork, loin or shoulder, trimmed of fat and cut into 1/2″ - 1″ chunks
1/2 c mild vinegar, preferably rice vinegar
Rice

Saute spices, garlic, ginger, and shallot in olive oil over medium heat until fragrant.

Add pork. Brown each piece on two sides.

Add vinegar and bring to a boil. Drop heat to low and allow to cook with the lid on for 20 minutes. Serve over rice.

Background music was Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3

Microwavability: 4/5 - Comes out surprisingly good. I’m usually a little skittish about microwaved pork, it always tastes a little off to me, but this one pops out of the microwave tasting just as good as it did yesterday. I’m thinking it’s because the taste sensation that sweeps your nation helps to conceal the nuked-porkiness.

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