One of the most frequent peeves of beginner cooks is that they can’t cook moist, juicy pork chops. When those cooks are moms with kids, such an issue can turn into a tragedy, as those little fussy eaters simply refuse chewing the meat. A common trick for moistening pork chops is to marinate them over night before grilling or baking them. However, if you don’t have the time to wait that much, you still can find a few pork chop recipes that result in a tender, juicy meat, just as children love it. Here’s an idea for you to try next time you think of cooking pork chops:

Ingredients:

• 4 pork chops, boneless, maximum 1 inch thick
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups of white flour
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 cup olive oil
• Salt, pepper

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves 4

Method:

Beat each pork chop with a meat beater as thin as you can. If you don’t like the idea of cleaning the kitchen walls and the floor of meat juice and tiny bits of meat, then you’d better put a plastic foil on the chops when you beat them. Sprinkle each chop with salt and dried thyme on both sides.

In a bowl, mix the eggs with the white flour and with some salt and pepper. It’s hard to give an exact amount of flour you need to use, but I can tell you what you’re after: a mixture that’s still liquid, yet doesn’t drip off the chops when you dip them inside the bowl, then take them out.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, dip each pork chop in the egg-flour mixture, then put them one by one in the pan, making sure they don’t overlap. Fry them at medium heat for about 6-8 minutes on each side or until they turn light brown. If your pan is not large enough to accommodate all four chops at once, fry them two at a time, then repeat. After they are done, take them out of the pan and put them on a paper towel, so the oil gets drained.

Serve the pork chops with steamed vegetables or with mashed potatoes. Leftovers are excellent for cold sandwiches.

Usually, when thinking of pork chops, we don’t imagine stuffing them. However, that’s possible and there are so many stuffed pork chops recipes that would be enough to cook for several months without repeating yourself. Mushrooms make a great stuffing, as you’re going to see from the recipe below, if you have the curiosity to try it at home.

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless pork chops, about 2 inches thick
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled, minced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 6-8 medium size mushrooms, diced
• 1/2 can sweet corn
• 1/2 cup fresh dill, cut small
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon vegetable seasoning mix (if the seasoning is salty, don’t add more salt to the food)
• 1 can of mushroom cream soup
• 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, grated
• Pepper to taste

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves: 4

Cooking instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F. With a small, sharp knife, cut a pocket into each piece of meat, as deep as you can. Take a frying pan, put some olive oil in it, then brown the pork chops on both sides. 3-4 minutes of cooking on each side should be enough for the chops to get a very nice color. Combine all other ingredients except from the mushroom soup and the Parmesan cheese into a bowl, then spoon the mixture inside the pork chops, in the pockets you’ve previously cut, then arrange the chops inside a baking dish, making sure they don’t overlap. Mix the mushroom cream soup with about 1/2 cup of water and pour it onto the chops, then cover the baking dish, put it in the oven and cook the chops for about 30 minutes. Remove the cover, top the dish with the grated Parmesan cheese, then let it bake for more 10 minutes. Serve the pork chops hot, with baked potatoes and minced fresh parsley.

Frying is one of the easiest and fastest ways of cooking pork chops. There’s no need to know how to cook in order to be able to fry meat, especially when it’s cut very thin. Different seasonings will give the food different flavors, so don’t be afraid to test all herbs and spices you can find. Here’s one of basic fried pork chops recipes to get you started if it’s the first time you cook.

Ingredients:

• 6 pork chops, bone-in, very thin
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (you can use seasoned salt, it’s nice)
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, ground coarsely
• 1 cup olive oil (or more, depending on the size of your pan)
• herbs and spices according to your preference

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Serves: 6

Cooking procedure:

Rinse the chops with water and dry them in a paper towel afterwards. This is a step you can skip, but some people prefer to let some water running over the meat before cooking it, just to make sure that any residue is gone. Sometimes, pork chops have small fragments of bone all over the surface and those aren’t nice when found in your mouth.

Mix the flour with the salt and the pepper in a large plate, then place the pork chops in the mix, making sure to cover them completely on both sides. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, then take the pork chops out of the flour mix, shake them well to remove the excess flour, then put them in the pan. You’ll probably have room enough only for three chops if your pan is of average size. What you need to watch is that the pieces of meat don’t overlap. Fry the chops on each side for about 3-4 minutes. You’ll know when they are done when they turn yellow or when you can easily push the fork through them. Beware of hot oil if you decide to try them with the fork, because it might land on you and cause you burns if you’re not careful. This is a reminder that you should never cook naked, but I bet you knew that already.

After taking the cooked chops out of the pan, let them rest a little bit, so the oil gets drained, then serve them with mashed potatoes and with pickled beetroot.