Breaded Pork Chops on the Bone

The simplest dish made from a pounded piece of pork is the breaded chop. Minimum effort and you get a great dinner or breakfast. Anyone can make breaded pork chops. And mind you, it will be tastier and much quicker than trying to have breakfast on fast food and instant coffee.

Historically, the term “cutlet” familiar to Europeans (from the French côtelette, a piece of meat on the rib) means, in our kitchen, a patty made of ground meat. A pounded and fried piece of meat is called an “otbivnaya” or “bitok”. Sometimes you also hear the grand term “natural cutlet”. For example, the world-famous Wiener schnitzel, a thinly pounded piece of veal fried in breading, is a masterpiece of culinary art, and by and large it is the same natural cutlet.

In any big store with a meat counter you can always buy a decent bone-in piece of pork on the rib, and with luck it will not even be frozen. Pork cut properly across the grain is excellent for frying in a pan or on coals. At home, especially early in the morning or after work, frying a bitok or breaded chops for yourself takes half an hour at most. The only thing that matters is that the meat is not frozen.

When making breaded chops, the composition and quality of the breading are very important. The technique called breading means coating the food, before frying, with a layer (usually thick) of some binding ingredient. In the simplest case, breading is done with plain flour or beaten egg, followed by dry breadcrumbs. Besides improving the taste and look of the fried meat, breading creates an almost airtight crust around it and keeps the meat juices from running out during frying. That gives the meat what it usually lacks: juiciness!

Store-bought breadcrumbs or breading mixes usually worry me with their ingredients and quality. It feels like the crumbs for breading mixes are made from spoiled stale bread. Meanwhile, crumbs from dry white bread, which are used for frying meat and other foods, are easy to make yourself, and then you are absolutely sure of their freshness and quality.

There is usually a dried-out baton or so-called French baguette lying in our fridge. A modern fridge dries fresh bread very quickly, and all you need to do is grate it and sift it. You get excellent breadcrumbs, perfect for cooking. Chops breaded in fresh breadcrumbs come out a beautiful golden color and very juicy.