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Scalloped Pork and Potato
6 medium sized potatoes salt pepper flour 1/2 cup milk 1 cup cooked peas 6 pork chops Slice potatoes into a baking dish. Dust liberally with salt, pepper and flour. Add milk and peas; lay pork chops on top and bake in a moderate oven until the chops and potatoes are cooked through. Bake if possible in dish in which it is to be served. Serves 6.
A one-dish supper of the sort that assumes a cook is home all afternoon: the potatoes and chops go in raw together and the oven does the rest. Two things need attention — the very small amount of liquid, and the fact that pork is no longer cooked the way it was in the 1930s.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 350F. At that temperature sliced potatoes in a shallow dish need roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours; test with a knife tip through the centre of the layers rather than by the clock.
- The liquid is barely adequateHalf a cup of milk for six potatoes will not cover them, and much of it evaporates. Cover the dish tightly with foil for the first hour so the potatoes steam, then uncover to brown. Slicing the potatoes thin (about 1/8 inch) matters more here than in a recipe with plenty of sauce.
- Flour dusted, not stirredThe flour between the potato layers is the thickener — it takes up the milk and the fat rendering off the chops to make a thin sauce. Dust it evenly over each layer rather than tipping it in at once, or you get pale lumps.
- Pork chops then and nowPork of this period was generally fatter than today's, and that fat basted the potatoes as it rendered. Modern loin chops are lean and can dry out before the potatoes are done. Use bone-in chops at least an inch thick, and consider adding them partway through rather than at the start.
- Cook the pork to temperature"Cooked through" in the original means well done throughout. Current guidance is 145F at the centre of a whole chop, with a short rest — which leaves the meat faintly pink and much juicier.
- The peasCooked peas in the 1930s would most likely have been canned or long-boiled, though frozen peas were beginning to appear. Frozen peas are better here but will dull over an hour and a half; stir them in for the last fifteen minutes instead of layering them at the start.
- Bake in the serving dishSound advice, and the reason to choose a wide shallow earthenware or enamelled dish rather than a deep one. Depth is the enemy of evenly cooked scalloped potatoes.
- YieldSix as written, one chop each. It wants nothing more than something sharp alongside — pickles, or a plain vinegared salad.