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Baked Pork Chops
Prepare as for Broiled Pork Chops and cook in hot oven twenty minutes, turning when half cooked.
Sautéd Pork Chops Cook chops in hissing hot frying pan in small amount of fat. Drain and serve.
Two terse methods for the same cut, written for a cook who already knew what "prepare as for broiled" meant: chops trimmed of surplus fat, wiped dry, and seasoned with salt and pepper just before they meet the heat.
- "Hot oven"Period American cookbooks put a hot oven somewhere in the region of 400-450F, though the scales differ from book to book and Lowney's gives no figure. At that heat a chop browns rather than steams, which is the whole point of the method.
- Twenty minutes is for a thin chopTwenty minutes suits a thin chop -- the book gives no thickness. A modern 1- to 1 1/4-inch chop needs longer, and thickness matters far more than the clock. Cook to an internal 145F and rest 3 minutes.
- Pork is a different animal nowContemporary pork is bred far leaner and no longer needs the long, hard cooking older books assumed. Chops taken past about 155F turn dry and fibrous regardless of method.
- Turning halfwayAs instructed, so both faces colour. Use tongs rather than a fork so you do not drain the juices.
- "Hissing hot frying pan"The sauté version wants the fat shimmering and the pan audibly loud before the chop goes in; a lukewarm pan gives grey meat and rendered liquid. Cast iron or heavy steel holds the heat when the cold chop lands.
- "Small amount of fat"A tablespoon of lard, bacon fat or oil. Fatty chops will render enough of their own within a minute or two, so start conservatively.
- ServingFigure one chop per person for a large loin or rib chop, two if the chops are thin. Deglaze the sauté pan with a splash of cider or stock if you want anything resembling a sauce, as the original offers none.
Lowney's Cook Book (1907) was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston, a chocolate manufacturer. That may explain the extreme brevity here: the author appears to assume the broiled-chop entry a few lines earlier has already done the teaching. The heavy cooking of pork in books of this generation reflects a real and widely publicised fear of trichinosis, which drove American home cooks toward thoroughly done pork well into the twentieth century; the modern 145F guidance for whole cuts came only after decades of change in how hogs are raised and fed.