I’m Frank Proto,
professional chef and culinary instructor,
and today I’m gonna show you
how to make a restaurant quality pork chop
with a silky, velvety pan sauce.
With a few key techniques,
your pork chop will be juicy and succulent every time.
This is Pork Chop 101.
Before we start cooking anything,
I want you to pay attention to this pork chop.
This chop we have here is a center-cut pork chop,
bone-in, fat cap left on,
and that fat is edible, people.
Some would say the fat is the best part.
Who’s ready to cook this beautiful pork chop?
This guy. Let’s get started.
[gentle music]
When you go through the trouble
to get a beautiful cut of meat like this,
you want the meat to shine.
I keep the seasoning simple, salt and pepper.
I wanna taste the pork.
When it comes to seasoning,
you wanna get your pork chop nice and dry.
Moisture is the enemy of a good sear
and a nice brown crust on the outside.
And I’m gonna go a nice dusting of pepper.
So you see how I’m holding this pepper mill up high?
The higher you go, the better dispersion you get.
And then I’m gonna get my salt
and I’m gonna go pretty heavy on the salt, right?
The inside of our pork chop isn’t seasoned,
so when we cut that slice,
we’re gonna get that nice salty crust
and that nice juicy interior.
And do the other side, give it a little dab, season it up,
fair amount of salt, and get that fat season too
’cause we’re gonna give a little bit of brownness
to this as well.
Before this goes in the pan, we’re gonna dab it again
to make sure there’s no more moisture,
and then we can sear.
[gentle music]
First step is to get our pan hot.
And we’re gonna go for a medium high heat.
And I’m gonna add some vegetable oil, a neutral oil,
something with not a lot of flavor.
That’s just gonna help us brown that pork chop.
I want the pan to have a nice coating of oil.
When it’s getting ready to go,
you’ll see that it kind of gets shimmery and ripply,
and you’ll see just a little bit of smoke coming off.
One last time, I’m gonna dab my pork chop off.
I’m gonna put it in the pan
and drop it away from me
so that I don’t get splashed with hot oil.
This point I can lower just a little
because I see I got a lot of smoke there.
So I’m just gonna let it go for a few minutes.
Similar to a steak,
you can cook this pork chop to a medium temperature,
and that’s gonna ensure that it’s juicy and delicious.
I’m not gonna turn it until I see
that I’m starting to get brown on the bottom side.
So what you could do is just give it a little peek.
How are we looking there, boys?
At this point, I’m gonna give it a turn,
getting some nice browning there.
And we’re gonna let its sear on this side
for a few minutes, maybe about three to four minutes.
This point, once I get a little brown on both sides,
I’m gonna hold it on the fat side
to render that fat out a little.
What that helps us do
is take some of the moisture out of the fat
and make it more delicious.
The pork chop at this point is not at all cooked,
but what I’m gonna do
is I’m gonna get some of that searing fat off,
put my pork chop back in the pan,
and I’m gonna add butter,
a couple of sprigs of thyme, and some crushed garlic.
And what this is gonna do
is it’s gonna start to flavor our pork chop.
So I’m gonna tilt it and get all that butter
and thyme and garlic, and I’m gonna baste my pork chop.
Basically when we baste, we’re putting fat or juices
over the top of our pork chop.
Our garlic gets brown and fragrant.
Our butter gets nice and brown and nutty.
And this all transfers to the crust on our pork chop.
When you’re cooking a thick piece of meat like this,
you wanna get yourself an instant-read thermometer.
What I like to do is go really close to the bone,
’cause closest to the bone
is gonna be the last piece that cooks.
I’m probably looking for about 135, 140 degrees.
We’re at about 120,
so we’re gonna let it go for a minute or two more.
All right, I think we’re good here.
I’m gonna take my pork chop out.
And you can see that I have a resting rack over here.
I’m gonna let it rest for about five to seven minutes
so those juices can redistribute.
This gives us time to make our pan sauce.
[gentle music]
First thing we wanna do with our pan sauce
is get rid of this used up butter and oil.
I’m just gonna take this, put it into this bowl.
What’s cool about the pan is, though,
we have all these little brown bits,
that’s called the fond, F-O-N-D,
and we wanna keep that in the pan.
That is our flavor base for our sauce.
So we’re gonna turn our pan back on, kind of a medium heat,
and we’re gonna put some fresh oil in there.
And then we start with our aromatics.
I’m starting out with some shallots,
just a little salt.
Salt will bring out some of the moisture in the shallots.
I like using shallots for my pan sauce.
I think they got a little bit of a finer flavor than onions.
And you’ll notice that I didn’t add my garlic at this point.
Shallots take a little longer than garlic to cook.
And if I added my garlic and shallots at the same time,
they would burn.
I’m gonna add my thyme.
I’m gonna add a little chopped garlic.
And we’re just gonna cook this so it’s fragrant and not raw.
Now we have a little bit of browning
on our shallots and our garlic.
So I’m using apple brandy in this, and that’s my preference.
I like the flavor of apples.
If you like apple cider, apple cider vinegar, beer, wine
you can use any of those to deglaze the pan.
Take a step back.
I’m gonna add some whole grain mustard to this.
And I’m gonna extinguish the flame
with a little bit of heavy cream.
Eh, maybe a lot of heavy cream.
If that makes you nervous,
use something lower in alcohol.
Brandy is high in alcohol, so you get a lot of fire.
White wine, use beer, use cider, cider vinegar.
All of those have a little more water content.
You’re not gonna get any flame.
Now, if your heavy cream is super thick,
we’re gonna take a little bit of chicken stock
and just thin it out and let the sauce come together.
So we have the fond and the chicken stock,
and that’s gonna give us
a nice kind of meaty background to our sauce.
Of course, always salt and pepper.
And then we’re gonna let this reduce.
So at this point I’m gonna add a little knob of butter.
And we’re just gonna let that butter kind of melt in.
And the butter’s gonna help thicken the sauce a little too,
as well as give us flavor.
When our sauce is reducing,
you’ll see the bubbles are really small
and they’re popping like crazy.
As this gets thicker,
you’re gonna notice the bubbles get bigger and pop slower.
You can see it here happening, right?
I’m looking at my bubbles
to make sure that they are popping slower
as the consistency gets better.
The best way to determine that our sauce is done
is you put a spoon in there, you run your finger through it,
and if you get a nice crisp line, your sauce is ready to go.
[gentle music]
We’ve done all this work to make our sauce beautiful,
our pork chop perfect.
Now’s my favorite time.
Let’s get on a plate and eat it.
Our sauce is done, but I do wanna add some garnish to it.
So we’re gonna brighten it up with a little bit of parsley.
It’s got great flavor.
Right, you wanna make sure you do this at the end
’cause the parsley will turn brown eventually.
That’s a big pork chop, and we need a lot of sauce.
I’m gonna put a fair amount of sauce on my plate.
I’m gonna put my pork chop right on top, right in the sauce.
I generally don’t like to put sauce on top of this
because I put a lot of effort
into making this nice and golden brown.
And there you have it,
Chef Frank’s pork chop with pan sauce.
Now it’s time to cut into this pork chop
and give it a taste.
Let’s take a moment here just to look how beautiful this is.
I almost don’t wanna cut into it,
but I’m gonna do it anyway.
Look at that, right?
Our pork isn’t dry.
We got a little bit of juiciness to it.
It’s cooked all the way through, right?
It’s not pink, but it is still very juicy.
Let’s get in there.
I’m gonna take a little piece with the fat.
I’m gonna dip it in the sauce.
There is a symphony of flavors going on here,
mustard, apples, cream, pork, pork fat.
Everything together is just fantastic.
Cooking is a lot about technique and the process of cooking,
but at the end of the day, you gotta put some love in it.
And this pork chop is all love,
lots of butter and cream too.
