Perfect Pork Chops - How to Make "Dry-Brined" Pork Chops

hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with perfect pork chops that's right the real name for this video is how to dry brine pork chops but that name wasn't quite as catchy as perfect pork chops and besides they're pretty much the same thing because by using this very simple technique you can pretty much ensure perfect pork chops every time and if you're wondering if there's some kind of catch there really isn't although I guess you do have to figure out you want pork chops a day ahead of time but other than that and incredibly straightforward technique that only requires three ingredients and no water is not one of them so into this ramekin I'm going to add a couple spoons of kosher salt as well as a spoon of freshly ground black pepper and then last but not least and I'm sure you did not see this coming we'll finish off with some cayenne and then we'll take our freakishly small wooden spoon and as soon as that's mixed up our dry brine is done and if you're thinking to yourself dry brine is a ridiculous name because there's no liquid in this how can it be a brine well you know what you're absolutely right but regardless it really does actually brine the meat pretty much the same way hence the nonsensical and very oxymoronic name so really what this is is a dry rub but what it does is dry brine but anyway we can discuss that on the blog post for now we're going to need some meat and what I'm going to be using here are two beautiful center-cut pork chops which features this kind of t-shaped bone at the end in one quick tip because that bone is generally thicker than the meat itself this cut is much better for grilling than it is for pan frying and you'll see why later but the point is this is really going to work on any kind of pork chop and all we're going to need to do here is take our dry rub woops I meant dry brine and generously apply to both sides and no that's not too much in fact you can put a little more okay we want to make sure both sides are covered and by the way a lot of people do like to include a little sugar in the brine mix but I usually don't I've tried it and it doesn't really cause any problems but I don't find these commodity juicier whether you use it or not plus I often serve my grilled pork with sort of a sweeter type sauce so I don't necessarily need that meat to have another layer of sweetness so I'm just going to go with salt pepper cayenne but regardless of what you're actually using in your dry brine we do want to make sure those pork chops are coated generously and once we are confident that's happened what we'll do is transfer these onto a rack because these are going to spend one day uncovered a brining quote-unquote in the fridge and by the way if you don't have a rack you can just crinkle up some foil that would work okay or even better go by rack you need one of those in the kitchen but anyway once that set we'll go ahead and pop that in the fridge for between 18 and 24 hours which is my official recommendation some people think you could do this in less time like in a matter of hours so that's up to you if you want to try it with a little less time go ahead when it comes to osmosis you are the hostess but I did let mine go for 24 hours after which it looked like this and as you may have gathered from those marks on the surface I did give these a flip about halfway through which I'm pretty sure is totally unnecessary but hey I've never let that stop me before and what I find so interesting here is this looks and feels exactly like something that was brined and then dried off so that's why I really do love this technique so much we basically get all the benefits of brining without any of the Associated wetness and that believe it or not is pretty much it for our dry brining demo because now you're free to go ahead and cook that pork chop any way you want which for me this time is going to be on a charcoal grill and to prep these for that I'm gonna go ahead and brush them with a few drops of vegetable oil on both sides before heading outside to the grill and no not the usual grill that one broke but as some of you may know I do have an old pile of bricks in the backyard and sometimes we'll arrange those into a makeshift grill which really does work beautifully in fact I might not even buy another grill so we'll go ahead and grill these chaps to perfection which for me is in an internal temp of about 135 and by the way I didn't film it this time because we've done it an old stake in chopped videos but if you make one or two shallow slices through that fat just to the meat around that edge you won't have to worry about it curling up as it cooks and it will lay a little flatter but anyway just in case you were wondering what those cuts were and as I mentioned earlier because of their bone structure I find these center-cut varieties much better for the grill than pan frying because that bone is thicker than the meat it's almost impossible for the meat near the bone to come in contact with your pan okay you see those light parts so when we're grilling that's not that big of a deal but in a pan that bone prevents a chap from laying flat and you really don't get that great of a sear and speaking of bones because that end is a little thicker and denser it's not a bad idea to flip them up this way and let them like that for a little while that spots always going to cook a little slower so I do like to give that bone a little direct heat as shown but anyway I went ahead and finished grilling those off to an internal temp of about 135 in fact if you have one of those old cookbooks that tells you to cook it to 180 you can just go ahead throw that away and one of mine was a little thicker than the other so I needed to give it a couple more minutes and then once both my chops were done to my liking I headed inside to let them rest for five minutes I know you want to eat now so do I but they're going to be so much better five or six minutes from now and I mentioned I shoot for an internal temp of 135 but if you don't have a thermometer you can basically use the same test we use for a chicken breast or if it's semi firm and springs back like this it's probably pretty close okay if it feels mushy its undercooked and if it feels hard its overcooked but anyway I let my rest for about five minutes before plating up next to some proper arugula and I finish this up with a spoon of spicy kumquat chutney and if you're thinking spicy kumquat chutney that looks like your kumquat marmalade that you just stirred some rice vinegar and hot sauce into possibly but anyway forget about that beautiful sauce what I really want you to focus on is the effect that dry brining has on this meat and for once actually shot at a good angle where you can see this look at that amazing glistening juicy meat and as I proved in almost every video I don't know any food styling and don't do any of those tricks so that is 100% natural just so juicy so tender and above and beyond all that locked in moisture and fantastic mouthfeel the flavor is also amazing basically this chop has been seasoned from the inside out and it tastes like it so let me go for another piece here only this one I'm going to bedazzle with a jewel of that candy kumquat oh man was that good and I realized that some of you especially the ones that like things to make sense will have a problem using the term dry brine that's okay nobody cares what you call this as long as you do it on a regular basis so I really do hope you give these perfect pork chops a try soon head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 493,304

Rating: 4.9518123 out of 5

Keywords: Pork, Chops, Dry, Brined, juicy, easy, tender, brine, meat, chef, john, foodwishes

Id: lVD7aVl4570

Length: 6min 45sec (405 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 26 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Dakroon1]

Lol seasoning your meat is now "dry-brining".

[u/ss0889]

im always on the lookout for good pork chop recipes. i find pork chops and tenderloins tend to be dry and chewy and the meat itself doesnt really have a great flavor. generally i do an herb crust/rub before grilling but im always disappointed in the center.