needrain said:
The brine directions I used as a guideline - 1/4 cup kosher salt to 4 cups water. It said to dissolve the salt in 1/2 cup boiling water and then add 3 1/2 cup cold water to it after the salt was dissolved. The brine was intended for two 2 1/4 inch center cut, bone-in pork chops and intended to be grilled. The directions said submerge and refrigerate the chops in the brine for six hours.
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Here's where I changed it. I didn't have enough Kosher salt (I've remedied that - I use that more than other salts) so I used 1/8 cup sea salt - big salt crystals, but left the water amount the same. I'm not sure I can even purchase bone-in pork chops that thick here. What I had was a package of three boneless 1" thick pork chops. Per the directions, they were submerged and refrigerated for 6 hours. I'm not fond of the process of grilling, so I pan fried them in a skillet with a small amount of olive oil and a dollop of butter.
I should have asked - are you generally sensitive to salt? Those who generally use less salt find foods 'saltier' when they are salted to what might be considered 'normal' levels. Often these are people who find food prepared at restaurants to be too salty as restaurants use salt more liberally than any cautious home cook does.
Your brine should not have been overly salty - it pretty closely mimics the tried and true 1 TBS salt per cup of water. Though, since you are not brining your pork as a means of preserving it you can reduce the salt to water ratio. You can experiment in two ways; reducing the salt to water ratio or leaving the brine unchanged but shortening the time the chops are in the brine. The disadvantage to the latter is that without adequate time there is less benefit gained. My first experiment would be to decrease the salt by 25% and increase the time. I'd likely put the chops in brine tonight for tomorrow night's dinner.
It sounds as if you are trying for a flavor boost but more for a way to not have a dry chop. May I suggest dry-brining your next chop(s) and possibly altering your cooking method a bit?
It will seem counterintuitive to those who ever bought into the "don't season your meat until just before putting it into the pan" rubbish, but if you season your meat the day before cooking it you will have much the same result as brining, thus dry brining. Follow these steps to experiment with a chop or two -
Use whatever seasoning you generally like; I am a simple man and so for me that is always thyme-salt (simply fresh thyme ground with salt in my mortar and pestle, allowed to dry and then bottled), and pepper. For something like two pork chops I would mix a heaping teaspoon to a teaspoon and a half of the salt with about a half teaspoon of brown sugar - or if I have it on hand maple sugar. The sugar is hygroscopic and key to the process. Generously season and massage the mixture onto both sides of the chops and place on a plate covered with cling film and refrigerate for 24 hours. (By the way, I always season a whole chicken in much the same way, ((though generally the sugar is unnecessary)), by seasoning the flesh by working under the skin and massaging. If I can't do this a day ahead I will not roast a chicken.) What happens is that initially the salt and (hygroscopic) sugar draws moisture out of the flesh - which would seem to be a means of making your chop drier - but as the protein strands in the flesh subsequently begin to relax they draw moisture back into the meat and that moisture now carries with it your seasoning. Don't rinse before cooking, but rather bring to room temp and then blot them dry immediately before cooking. Remember, though, that the sugar will also want to caramelize quickly and so can burn more easily than you are used to. So, I would simply heat a dry heavy saute pan (rolled steel or cast iron is ideal) over medium heat, once hot add a bit of oil - not too much, add the chops and leave them alone...don't stir, poke, peek...leave them alone... for about three or four minutes before lifting to check their color - If they are a deep golden brown, turn them and immediately place the saute pan in a fairly hot oven 205C+/- / 400 F for about four more minutes. Remove the pan and allow the chops to rest in the pan, off the heat, to finish their cooking for about 10-15 minutes (if you are one of those foolish people who think their meat must be piping hot when eaten you might tent with a piece of foil and allow to rest for only 10 minutes - in a heavy pan the meat will remain hot longer than you think). For small cuts of meat I think it unnecessary to use a thermometer; I can certainly tell by feel. But if you are more cautious you can use an instant read thermometer at the moment you remove the meat from the oven and the chops should be at about 135 - 140 F - but after 10 to 15 minute rest in the still hot pan they will have risen to 160 - 165 F. I feel safe being on the low end of that range (if I am cooking for myself only I will generally cook pork to a final, post-rest temp of 150 F (a good 10-15 degrees below the USDA recommendation). At 150 the pork will still have a very slight pink hue and is my preference.
Why do people think pork needs to be 'overcooked'? Because your grandmother did. But she was likely overcooking in order to kill the parasites causing trichinosis which was relatively common in pork at the time. With improvements in farming (well, some 'improvements' might be debatable) trichinosis is now extremely rare; and most of those cases are caused by eating undercooked game, not farmed, animals. Last time I checked I remember on average there were something like 10+ cases of trichinosis per year in the US.
Anyway, I find the dry brining for small cuts to give the same benefits without all the bother. I do brine many cuts of meat - turkey (wet brine), pork chops (dry), pork roasts (both wet and dry depending on the cut and what I am doing with it), beef (depending on what I am doing I will often season a steak the night before), already mentioned chicken, duck (dry - and with stronger seasonings at least three or four days in advance)...your possibilities are endless. The brining world is your lobster.
Inside joke, sorry. Have fun.
