Pork chops are rinsed and soaked overnight in a brine. In this case, overnight started at 3:00 A.M. and held until noon that day. So I guess that's actually eight morning hours.
MATHS !
The pork chops are rinsed, dried, coated in bread crumbs, and baked.
The brine is flavored with sake. Why sake? Because the bottle was right there on the countertop already opened. It wouldn't take much, and because I didn't want to open a bottle of white wine, for I am a cheapskate that way sometimes.
An actual authoritative legal brine was not prepared either, rather, dry salt was applied abundantly to both sides of each pork chop before being placed in a baking dish, and then sake and water were added to cover. I did not want to try to judge how much water the container would take up after it was filled with pork chops. I did not like the idea of mixing up a bowl of brine then wasting half of it, salt, sake, herbs and spices. I think they do kosher chickens similarly by loading them up with salt but keeping it dry. One time I saw a very old Jewish farm couple do that.
The salt is kosher too. What makes kosher salt kosher? A rabbi gets all got up in rabbinical dress, draped with a tallit and everything, then he stands over a gigantic vat of salt, holds up his arms, and says,
"God BLESS this here salt!
Bang! There is it, kosher salt.
I don't know. What do I look like, a theological anthropologist over here? No wait, I do know. I saw it on the teevee. All salt is kosher, even regular table salt wot been iodized. The thing that makes salt kosher is its use in the production of kosher foods. That's all.
↓ The next day all the stuff is rinsed off the pork chops and they are left to soak in plain water. The idea I am entertaining is that by the surface cells having been damaged by the brine, and the back-and-forth avenues of osmosis already established and wide open, the differential in salt-concentration between the interior meat and the exterior clear water will seek equilibrium either chemically or magically, one or the other. So I let it sit there for an hour or so and do that, if it will. That way the meat will not be so salty when cooked. Even so, no more salt for these pork chops, no Siree, they've already had all they can handle. What are you, insane?
An herbalicious mixture of spice seeds is ground in the coffee grinder. Herbs de provence are included here for no good reason other than impulse. I forgot the garlic powder which I intended. Oh well. Now I am defenseless against vampire attack.
The seasoning is divided among the flour dredge, the liquid egg drench, and the final breadcrumb dredge.
Dredge ---> drench ---> dredge.
Each pork chop coating has the same seasoning for consistency. I do not want to waste anything, if that is possible. Those carefree wanton days of profligate wastage are over, I tell you. It's careful mature judgement from hereon out. But I mustn't come up short either because the precise combination of spices cannot be duplicated and that would mean some of the pork chops would turn out differently than the others, so I aim to error on the side of slight wastage, if error I must.
Except for eggs, I don't care about those. I got a million of 'em.
And flour too. There is a whole 25LB sack of that, so who cares if some is wasted?
And spices, please, there's a ton of that stuff around here.
Okay, fine. I guess I'm not going to be that careful after all.
No, srsly, after each pork chop was dusted with the initial layer of flour, important to keep the egg-drench on the pork chop, then the excess seasoned flour was dumped into the breadcrumbs for breadcrumb-conservation and to vary slightly the usual Panko texture. That turned out to be the deciding factor in having the amount of seasoned bread crumb coating come out so close to what was actually needed. So let that be a lesson for you about messing around or something.
↓ See? That is all that remained. Not bad, eh?
Patterns !
Baked at 375℉ until I could smell them. If you can not smell things, then too bad.
Disappointingly, the pork chops were done cooking before the Panko topping had fully browned. If I had left them baking to Panko-doneness then the pork chops would be seriously overcooked. The pork chops were releasing insufficient oil to assist the Panko turn color. So, the coating was lightly sprayed with vegetable oil, the oven turned off and the broiler turned on. The pork chops finished under the broiler until the coating turned color, just a few minutes.
Next time with Panko, I'll drizzle a little oil into the breadcrumb coating to ensure that it browns as the pork chops finish. Tricky, eh?
What, no applesauce?
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