How To Make Juicy Pork Chops | Chef Jean-Pierre

Well, hello there friends! I just made myself an amazing pork chop. I'm going to share the recipe with you and make it with sweet potatoes. Remember, thumbs up if you like the video, subscribe to the channel, and ring that bell. Stay tuned, we're going to make it together right now. Alright friends, well it's not really a secret, but we know if we want a perfect pork chop, we don't want to overcook it. Pork loin, pork tenderloin, same deal. We don't want to overcook it, that's for sure. We'll talk about that later when we cook it. But in the meantime, we have to introduce, because there's no fat in pork, especially the pork chop or the pork loin or pork tenderloin, there's no fat in there. So, it's all in the bacon. So, what we have to do friends is we have to introduce moisture, so then when we cook it, it doesn't dry out and it becomes chalky. Have you ever had a chalky pork chop? I've certainly did. Anyway, what we're going to do is we're going to make a brine. A brine is really a salt solution with water and salt. So, we can flavor it a little bit and give it a little bit of flavor. Not that a lot of that flavor is going to get into the meat, but a little bit of flavor. So, what we're going to do is we're going to take some juniper berry. If you don't have any, don't worry about it. It just gives you a little umami flavor. If you don't have any, you want to crush them. You want to crush them. Don't crush anything. You want to crush them. And we're going to put this. I got about two tablespoons of salt right here that I'm going to mix with about a quart of water, roughly. Maybe a little bit more. I got some garlic cloves. Like I said, the flavor of it, very little is going to get in. Now, we're going to get a little bit of a flavor of water. Some of it is going to get in because the water is going to get into the pork. So, we know some of that flavor is going to get in there. Also, I put a little bit of soy sauce because that's going to be really an introduction of salt. Again, it's going to help us. So, a little bit of soy sauce. We don't need a lot. What would you say? A large, healthy tablespoon. I'm also going to put a little bit of vinegar. I like to use for the pork a sherry vinegar. I got this beautiful sherry vinegar. This is a 25-year-old Spanish sherry vinegar. It's beautiful. I'm going to put it in here. I got to put a little bit of sugar. Oh, you know, I keep forgetting to tell you about this thing. This thing right here. Keep my sugar. See, look, it's not sticking. My sugar is not sticking at all. It's because of this stone right there that is made out of clay. So, I said, well, I don't have any one of those. I'm going to break one of my clay pots and put it in there. It didn't work. Somehow, this thing worked. I don't know how it works. I put about a tablespoon of sugar, and I'm using a brown sugar, light brown sugar. I'm going to mix all this up, and I'm going to put some water, friends. This is about a liter of water right there. We're going to mix all this up pretty good. We're going to put it in here, and right in there. Really simple. I'm going to finish the whole bottle. Probably going to need it all. The secret is to make sure your pork chops are solid. You know, I do the same thing with my pork loin or pork tenderloin. Same deal. You can do it in a Ziploc bag. Make sure the salt is well dissolved. It's very important. You may want to take a little more time dissolving it there, right? And then you're going to take your pork chop. I got some beautiful rib chops right there. And bone in. You can do bone out. You can do whatever you want. The secret now is to make sure we put a plastic film on top of this. Unless you do it in a Ziploc bag, remove all the air, and you're good to go in a bag. Otherwise, I put my plastic right on top of this, and I let it go. How long do you let it go? No more than six to eight hours. Six to eight hours, and you're perfectly fine. So we're going to wait for six hours. We're going to wait six hours. I like to do six hours. And then we're going to cook it together. All right, friends? So we'll be back. I'm going to put them in the fridge. Put them in the fridge, and I'll be back in six hours. But for you, it'll be just in a flash. Okay, friends. Pork chops have been marinated. Not marinated. Start again. Okay, friends. Pork chops have been brined. They're ready to go. And we're going to take them out of the salty water, and we're going to dry them really, really good. And then we're going to saute them. Now, one quick little thing we got to do, and don't let me forget it. First, I got to get rid of this. I got to make a couple of slits in the fat so they don't shrink on me. I'll show you what I'm talking about in a minute. Actually, this fat cap is pretty good, so I don't think it's going to have any issue. But they look kind of strange, don't they? But they're not. This looks better than this. Same thing, really. So we want to just take a knife right there, friends, and a boning knife will do just fine. Now, normally, you got a big fat cap all the way around, and you don't have any. Otherwise, you just give it a little slit right there. You see? You give it a little slit about every two inches or something. That avoids the fat from shrinking it so they won't be very flat, and then they don't sear pretty well in the pan. You'll see. When you have a big fat cap, this one doesn't want any. So it's not that big over there, really. So I made a big deal over nothing for these guys right there. But they're going to be nice. Let's see. You watch. So I got clarified butter, friends. And it's ready. So I better move. My clarified butter is ready. I'm going to put some black pepper in there. You know, I like a very coarse black pepper. Salt, we're going to go very light because we already got salt in the brine, so we don't need it. And I want to say that was enough right there, friends. And we are now going to put them in there. And we're going to leave them alone. Leave them alone for a second to get some beautiful Maillard reaction, caramelization of protein. Okay, friends? Going to leave them alone. Now, you can do it in a fry pan if they're very thin. But when they're quite thick like this, you know, I like to pop them in the oven for a few minutes. That's what we're going to do. And now the secret. Let me clean this up. Besides the fact that we don't want to overcook them, we really want to. Oh, hey, look, come back over here. See how you turn it off for a second. I don't want to overcook it. Let's put it that way. The most important thing is I do not want to overcook it. And pork, a lot of people cook pork at 165. Oh, mamma mia. This is very hot, too. This is very hot. Very hot, very hot. Too hot. That's what happens when you do live TV, folks. You see what happened? I burned the butter. That's okay. You know what it did? It helped me. This is like nice brown butter. It helped me seal the pan right there. So here we go. A little butter. Reduce the heat. That's what happens when you do live TV. You get the pan ready and they get too hot. I forgot what I was going to talk about. Because this got me distracted. So this is going to be a really nice easy sauce, folks. We're going to make a little sage mushroom sauce. And we're going to put the ingredients in that sauce that are familiar to this dish. And so we're going to put a little pepper, a little salt in there. And how we doing over there, folks? Like I said, if it's small, if they're very small, you can probably do them in a fry pan. And when they're thick, you may want to finish them in the oven a little bit for a few minutes. But you can do them in a fry pan also. We're not going to overcook. Oh, that's what I was talking about. Sometimes I forget and then it comes back. A lot of people overcook pork because they're afraid of trichinosis. Trichinosis has been eradicated 50 years ago, folks. They haven't had a case of trichinosis since I can remember when they had one, right? And anyway, trichinosis dies at 138 degrees. So if you're afraid of it, don't worry about it. As long as you cook it at 138 degrees. That's actually not cooking up for me. I like it at 145, 145, 150. I like it slightly moist, slightly pink in color. This is going to be fine probably in a fry pan the whole time. Now we're going to make a little sweet potato mash. I use it in a few recipes, but I never showed you how to do it from scratch. So I'm going to show you today. I put a little bit of Worcestershire sauce. And then since we put a little soy sauce in the brining liquid, we're going to put a touch of soy sauce. That's going to be our salt in there. Okay, that's all we're going to do. Really, really simple. If you have that porcini mushroom salt, you can put that in there. That would be actually very good. We're going to wait until we have a better color, and then we're going to be doing fine. We're going to reduce it a little bit. Let's take the potatoes, friends. The potatoes are cooked. Oh, I got to show you. When I cook the potatoes, friends, see I put, I shave ginger, and I put whole garlic cloves in here. I can't see them, but they're in there. I put three whole big garlic cloves in there. Oh, yeah, I found one. Anyway, it's in there somewhere. I put three garlic. This is two big potatoes, two large potatoes, right? We're going to strain them. We're going to let them drain a little bit. See, the ginger is right there, friends. We're going to take the ginger, put them right there. So the ginger and the garlic both poached, the ginger and the garlic both are poached, which means then they are cooked and mild, especially garlic. We're going to take it now after it's drained. Make sure you take the time to drain them really good, okay? I would probably take a little bit longer if I was not doing live TV. Oh, ginger, come back over here, you. There you go. You see, look, friends, you can see the garlic in there, the ginger, slice it thin. We're going to put them in here. I want you to take the time to drain them a little more, okay? But I didn't have much time because I'm doing so many things at the same time. Let me make sure we're doing well in here. The sauce is very simple, right? You notice? And those chops right there, friends, are going to be just fine. We're just going to let them rest. We're not even going to put them in the oven. They're going to be just fine. Let them cook. Okay, let's process the potatoes. Now, you can't do that with regular potatoes, friends. Sweet potato is the only one you can do that. Regular potatoes, they'll get gummy. You don't want a gummy mashed potato, that's for sure. But the sweet potato, they can take it. I'm going to put a little bit of cumin, very little. Cumin is wonderful, folks, in a small, small dose. Very, very little cumin. And a little bit of maple syrup. Oh, wow. A little maple syrup. I like very little maple syrup. And we're going to put a little bit of pepper. Everything is doing well. You know what I forgot? I forgot my Marsala wine, but it's in my bar. I was wondering if somebody could get it for me, my Marsala wine. Because I forget it. Here we go. I'll put a little Marsala wine in that sauce, folks. We're going to process those potatoes and hope that they get all mixed up pretty good. It looks good to me. There you go. The Marsala wine appears. That's great. I'm going to put a little bit of Marsala wine. And the Marsala wine, friends, is a fortified one. It does not need to be reduced. So here we go. Those chops are going to be ready. I'm going to take them out. I'm going to take them out, friends. They're ready. Done. I'm going to take them out. Let's make sure. They feel a little bit undercooked. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to do what I tell everybody to do, check temperature. They feel pretty good. Those potatoes are done. Let's check the temperature, friends. Let's see what we got. I think we can give them another minute or two. They felt a little rare at this point still. Now, as much as we don't want to undercook them, we don't want to overcook them either. I'm not worried about the bottom of it because we're going to use that sauce, okay? So, did I put the Marsala wine? Yes, I did. Let me put a little stock in there, friends. Really simple sauce, eh? You know I always forget something, right? I almost forgot the sage. But almost doesn't count. I'm looking. Did I forget anything? No, I didn't forget anything. Let's check the potatoes. Let's see what we got here, friends. A little smoother, a little smoother. Let me do a little smoother on the potatoes. And I'm almost done. Yes. I'm almost done. A little smoother. And then you know what we're going to do? We're going to add butter. Yes, friends, we're going to add butter. Let's see. Oh, yeah. Potatoes are down. See how simple that is? Now, I do so many different things with sweet potato mash, friends. We could do, we could add some corn in there. I sauté some corn with onion and rosemary sometime. I put it in there. You can do so many cool things with sweet potato mash. But this is a really simple, quick, easy recipe for you to do at home. Oh, mamma mia. There you go. And then all we need at this point, friends, is butter. Yes, yes. And do it while it's still hot. You see? Don't be shy now. Don't be shy. You know I'm not shy when it comes to the butter. And this right there, my friends, a wonderful sweet potato mash. And look how simple that was to make. Look how simple that was to make, right? And here we have it. How are we doing on the pork chop? Oh, this time they're down. This time they're down. I'm going to check them just in case, but I think they're down. Remember, don't be afraid to check them. People say, oh, if you poke them, if you poke them, you're going to release all the juices. That's so not true. If you poke them, you get just a little bit out where you poke. That's it. You're not getting all the juices out. You get just a little bit. So don't be afraid to poke. Okay, you're not going to hurt them. All right. And I'm right now at about 125, friends. So we're still not ready. Oh, this one, let me see. No, no, no. Actually, I'm good. I'm good. All right. We're going to let them right there. We're good. Let's turn them off. The mashed potatoes. Let me test it, friends. Let me make sure it's good. Oh, I got my microphone wired out. Let me check them to make sure they're good. They're delicious. The sauce. We can certainly leave the sauce like that, but it's a little thin. So you know what I like to do. A little bit of cornstarch. Don't be shy. A little bit of cornstarch is not going to hurt you. A little whisk would help. The minute we put it in, we want to whisk it in. The minute you put in your cornstarch, just make sure you take it in. That's all. You see? See how fast that went? Holy moly. That smells amazing. The sage. The sauce. Let me check it for salt. Let me check it to make sure it's good for salt, friends. Let me reduce the heat. I don't need that much of a heat. Oh, this is hot. This is going to be very hot. I got to be careful. Mmm. Delicious. As long as you like sage. You could use tarragon. That'd be good. You know what could be good also in there is a little bit of cream. You could do that. You could add a little bit of cream. All right, friends. Let me make a plate for dinner. Oh, yeah. Look at that. That's gorgeous. That's beautiful. Now, what we could do also, friends, we could deglaze this. You know what? Let's do it. Take a couple more minutes in the video, but I think it's worth it. Okay? Now, this right there, friends, we're going to take him here. Rest for a minute. Stay here. Don't go anywhere. And what we're going to do, we're going to take the fat out of there. Take the fat out. And take a little bit. This is too good, too good. A little bit of the Marsala. Because remember, Marsala wine is one of those fortified wines. That doesn't need to be reduced. Right? So, that's the cool part. We can just do that. You can use port, Madeira, Marsala. I use them all the time because I love them. And now what I'm going to do, I'm going to put this. This fond deglazed into my sauce. But, however, I'm not going to put. There's a little bit of burned bits in there. So, I'm not putting them in there. That's why I'm straining them. See? Straining them. Because I don't need the burned bits right there. All I needed was a flavor. And guess what? Right there, my friend. You have an amazing sauce. And the whole thing really took a little bit. I mean, it didn't take that long to do the whole thing. And you know what would be good in that sauce? You said it. You're correct. Don't be shy now. Don't be shy. Everybody loves butter. Everything is better with butter. That's all. Everything is better with butter. Butter is the love of food. It makes everything good. You see? Look at this, friends. Now, this. I got to test it again. I got to test it again, friends. And let's see what we got. Okay. How do we plate this? Do I have a clean plate? Yeah, I got one right here. We're going to do this very simple, friends. All right? We're going to do this very simple. We're going to take an ice cream scoop. And we're going to put our mashed potatoes. It's not big enough. You need a big one. Big scoop. I need my big mama scoop. I could have taken a spoon. It would have been the same deal, really. Same deal right there with a spoon. Look at the mess I got. I got a mess in here today. Where's my chop? Let's put the chop in here. Right there. Very simple. Then we're going to take a little bit of that sauce right there. And we're going to put it. You know, I could have put some vegetables in there, friends. But I didn't have time to do this. You can certainly put the sauce all over the chop. But I think we're going to be a little more elegant here. And put a little bit on the side. And you know what we should do? Sage. Sage is the flavor. It's the herbs of choice. The herbs of choice. We're going to put a little bit of a sprig of sage. Yeah, a sprig. I put the whole tree of it in there. And right there, all we need maybe is a little broccoli, a little sautéed spinach. And you have yourself right there a nice pork chop. Let's get into it and see how good it is, my friends. Okay. So we got a knife and a fork. And we're ready to go. All right. So what we're going to do is just going to cut right in there. And we're going to cut into it. And see, see, it's slightly, slightly pink. I mean, it's not pink. It's slightly pink still on the inside. It's a little too big of a bite for me to take. I just want to take a little bit of it right there. But this is so tender. Oh. Mmm. Look at this, my friends. It's perfect. Mmm. And the mashed potatoes with it. Mmm. And the sauce with it. Mmm. All of those flavors, my friends, are marrying so well. Mmm. It's a lot of prep to get going. Remember, you got to chop your mushrooms and all that stuff and the potatoes and all that stuff. But it's worth the doing. I promise you, you guys are going to love it. Thank you for watching. Remember, thumbs up if you like the video. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and ring that bell. Thanks for watching. We'll see you again real soon.