Fried Pork Chops Extraordinaire

Greetings fellow foodies! I often have the lead in weekend dinner preparation, as Ro handles weeknight dinners. While I did Saturday’s meal – a carne asade kidney bean chili with diced smoked poblanos, tomatillos, and chili powder-rubbed charcoal-grilled chopped sirloin, accompanied with sour cream cornbread and a blue cheese romaine salad and, oh yeah, fresh ruby red grapefruit margaritas – Ro, inspired by a vision of fried pork chops, took lead for Sunday dinner.

We found four beautiful bone-in center cut rib chops at the Fry’s just up Val Vista Drive. They were big – just under 1/3 pound each – and thick – a bit over ¾ inch – and lean, with a fine edge of fat. As we admired them on the shelf, we looked at each other and said, yeah, these will work. Ro planned to match them with her legendary macaroni and cheese, candied yams, spinach greens and onions, and biscuits – a menu that had the potential of being something special. My “mistress of seasoning” – her ability to balance seasoning to near perfect levels is a real talent – created a buttermilk bath for the chops, where they languished luxuriously for about an hour. During this time she assembled the mac and cheese, yams, and spinach greens. Ro’s mac and cheese renders irrelevant all other mac and cheese I’ve tasted. I could eat a whole baking dish of the stuff but that wouldn’t leave any room for the yams that she embellishes with a sweet butter syrup, candied pecans and light but wondrously gooey semi-melted marshmallows. Ridiculous. Pulling the chops from their seasoned bath, she dredged them in flour, dipped them in the buttermilk once more, and then dredged them again. With a nod to my frying skills, she solicited my support in cooking the chops. In response, I pulled out the serious hardware: my All-Clad 12-inch stainless steel Master Chef fry pan – the one with that mirror-like interior and lustrous matte-finished brushed aluminum exterior - because this was no time to mess around.

I heated a little more than a half inch of canola and olive oil – to make sure the chops were at least half submerged – to shimmering and placed two of them in the pan. Just two so they could stretch out and have some breathing room. I dropped the heat just a bit to prevent scorching, and then fried them for 8 to 9 minutes per side. That seasoned buttermilk and flour lent a gorgeous golden crunchy crust to those chops that was a sight to behold. Upon removing the first two from the pan I thought to myself “let me hurry up and get the other two cooking because I want to know what these taste like.” As Ro put the finishing touches on those mouth-watering sides, I finished frying the chops. We called Alexandra, Francesca and Chandler into the kitchen for dinner and they oooed and ahhhed at the feast we had laid out. They too particularly enjoy Ro’s mac and cheese and they were impressed with the size and crust of those chops.

As dusk fell on a warm early fall evening in the Valley of the Sun, we settled in to our kitchen dining table with candle light and fresh flowers as our centerpiece. Ro and I had glasses of crisp, chilled California pinot gris at the ready. After she humbly and gratefully acknowledged our bounty by saying grace, I dove right in to my chop.

I took one bite, reflected a moment, and glanced sideways at Ro on my right. She knowingly returned my look, took a bite herself, and nodded. We didn’t even have to say anything. The combination of the seasoned buttermilk bath and the searing, sealing effect of the frying lent a juiciness to the lean pork that was, quite simply, awe inspiring. Ro’s sides were fabulous: the mac and cheese at its usual high standard, the candied yams adding a superb sweet counterpoint, and the spinach and onions a fine green complement. The pinot gris paired deliciously with everything. There was nothing but the small bone left on my plate when I was done. It was a meal Ro and I lovingly prepared and one our family won’t soon forget.

Cheers! Cameron