This is a cooking columnist headline party pork chops Serve homemade

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jan 5, 2000 by LISA M. SODDERS Capital-Journal

Wednesday, January 5, 2000

B

s e c t i o n

Family traditions make for good eating

My friend Jorge is having a small gathering in Jersey City. Ted, a friend in Chicago, is lucky enough to be there and will get to enjoy the following recipe supplied by Jorge's cousin Bernardo. It's a traditional family recipe from Equador:

By LISA M. SODDERS

Photograph by KAREN MIKOLS

The Capital-Journal

ow do you turn a ho-hum Monday-night pork chop into a fancy feast worthy of Friday-night-at-a-restaurant?

Stuff it!

You can buy already stuffed pork chops at many grocery stores, but it's just as easy to buy plain, thick-cut pork chops and make your own stuffing. Serve them with steamed broccoli and rice pilaf, or, to continue the theme, twice-baked potatoes, stuffed with their own delectable mixture of mashed potatoes and cheese. Actually, the twice- baked potatoes will be more work than the chops.

There's more than one kind of pork chop, according to the National Pork Producers Council: center-cut, loin, rib chops, sirloin chops, boneless and bone-in. You can grill them, broil them, roast, saute or braise them. Thin chops, or those 1/4- to 3/8-inch thick, are best cooked by quickly sauteing them; thicker chops, or those 3/4- to 1 1/ 2-inch thick, are best cooked by panbroiling, grilling, roasting or braising. Stuffed pork chops lend themselves well to panbroiling and braising.

Braising is a cooking technique in which foods are first browned in a little fat, then covered and cooked slowly in a small amount of liquid. In pan-broiling, you cook the meat over direct, high heat in a heavy skillet.

Jeff Herman, manager of Herman's Meat & Deli Shop, 2825 S.W. Fairlawn, said loin chops are best for stuffing, preferably ones 1- inch to 2-inches thick. Center cut chops are the next-best. One of the most common mistakes people make when cooking pork is to overcook it, but the stuffing and braising the chops with a sauce will help keep them nice and moist, he said.

If dried-out pork chops have been a problem for you in the past, an instant-read food thermometer can help you make sure your pork is cooked to perfection, not over-cooked. Pork is best when it's cooked to medium doneness, or 160 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

"You can use any marinade or soups, like cream of mushroom, or any kind of sauce," Herman said. "You can use straight water if you like the flavor of the pork with some seasonings."

Stuffings can include everything from ready-made herb, wild rice or cornbread stuffing to the tart and tangy fruit stuffing in the recipe at right. While pork is exceptionally tasty cooked with fruit, it also goes well with such savory seasonings as fennel, garlic, basil, caraway, coriander, cumin, curry powder, dill, marjoram, rosemary, sage, tarragon and thyme.

Using a sharp knife, carefully make a small slit in the fatty side of the chop, then work the knife inside, creating a pocket by cutting horizontally, almost to the bone. It helps if the chops have been partially frozen to keep them firm when you do the cutting, but "you don't want to make them too frozen, or you'll saw away and cut yourself," Herman cautioned.

Stuff each chop with about 1/2 cup of stuffing. You can secure the stuffing by inserting one or two toothpicks diagonally near the opening; the smaller the original slit, the easier it will be to keep the pocket closed during cooking.

Like so many other lean cuts of meat, pork can be part of a healthy diet. A three-ounce cooked and trimmed pork tenderloin has 4.1 grams of total fat, 1.4 grams of saturated fat, 139 calories and 67 milligrams cholesterol, according to the USDA. It's also a source of Vitamin B12, which can only be found in animal products, as well as protein, iron, zinc and other vitamins.

The following recipe is from the National Pork Producers Council.