How to cook the best pork chops, through thick and thin
There is a kind of endless feedback loop in cooking that I have found myself stuck in on multiple occasions. If there's an ingredient I haven't worked with a lot, I'm afraid to work with it. Being afraid to cook it means I won't cook it, and so it goes. For me, pork is just one of those things.
My parents didn't make pork at home when I was a kid, which meant I didn't grow up eating a ton of it. So I never learned how to cook it.
Even when I started cooking for myself, I never gravitated toward pork. Force of habit, sure. But I also felt like all I heard about was the danger of overcooking it, so I never bothered.
Well, here I am - I have learned how to cook pork! And, yes, I overcooked it a few times, but, yes, it still tasted good. If you're anything like me, you'll slip up, you'll get distracted or you'll be working in an unfamiliar kitchen, and the internal temperature of the meat will slide above where you want it to be. But even if your pork chops are just a bit overcooked, the sauce provided with both recipes here can mask many faults.
Why two recipes? Because of that whole overcooking thing, you have to think about the best way to cook the meat evenly, and the best way is not necessarily the same for thick and thin cuts. Thin cuts easily dry out, because by the time you get the outside sufficiently seared, the meat inside is overdone. Thick cuts can be hard to get an even cook on, because you may overcook the outside before the inside can finish.
"Poaching" thin chops in a cider-based glaze keeps them moist and adds lots of flavor. Searing them first on one side will yield an appealing, golden brown crust. The original recipe from America's Test Kitchen called for thick, boneless chops, but I thought this method was especially well suited to thin, bone-in chops, which are easier to find at the grocery store. (Either rib or loin chops will work, although I found it easier to fit four rib chops in the skillet at once.) I tweaked the sauce a bit to mirror one from J. Kenji López-Alt at Serious Eats, so you can use it in this recipe - as well as in the related recipe ("Reverse-Seared Pork Chops"), which calls for thick boneless chops and a cooking method that takes the pork from the oven to the skillet.
You'll need an instant-read thermometer to monitor the meat. If your chops are on the thinner side, check their internal temperature after the initial sear. If they are already at the 140-degree mark, remove them from the skillet and allow them to rest for 5 minutes, tented with aluminum foil. Then add the platter juices and glaze ingredients to the skillet and proceed with glaze reduction. If your chops are closer to 1 inch thick, you may need to increase their cooking time in the glaze ingredients.
And about that temperature: The 160-degree mark may stick in your mind. That was previously the recommended safe internal temperature by the government (it still applies to ground pork), but most chefs and even home cooks can attest to that temperature causing many a sad, overcooked piece of pork. In recent years, the Food and Drug Administration lowered the safe minimum cooking temperature for pork to 145 degrees, so for medium, cook the meat to 140 to 145 degrees, knowing the temperature will rise to 145 to 150 degrees as the meat rests.
Dry, spongy pork? It's a thing of the past - just like my fear of cooking it.