Pan-Fried Pork with Onions
Ingredients
2 servings
- Pork (shoulder or leg) 400 g
- Onions 3
- Salo (pork back fat) or lard 50 g
- Salt to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
- Ground coriander to taste
Step-by-step recipe
Rendering the fat
For frying, it’s better to use pork fat rather than vegetable oil or butter. Don’t count on the pork having enough fat on its own: as a rule, pork doesn’t render any fat unless it has fairly large, visible bits of fat on it. You can use lard, pork fat rendered in advance, or take a piece of back fat and render the fat in the pan.
Cut the piece of salo into very thin slices of any size. What matters is that the fat renders out, and the thinner the slices, the better that works.
Render the pork fat in a well-heated frying pan. The cracklings must not burn under any circumstances.
Take the cracklings out of the hot fat right away and eat them immediately with bread. Highly recommended! Pork cracklings with bread are a first-class dish in their own right.
Frying the meat
You can use meat from any part of the pig, but shoulder or leg works best: there’s plenty of meat and a little fat along the edge.
Cut the meat into walnut-sized pieces or slightly larger.
Put the pieces into the pork fat and fry over medium heat, stirring constantly, without covering the pan.
Peel the onions and cut them lengthwise into thick strips. When it comes to onions, more is better: it’s best when the fried meat in the pan equals the fried onions in volume.
As soon as the pork starts to brown, salt it lightly, season with freshly ground fragrant black pepper and be sure to add ground coriander. Coriander goes beautifully with fried meat, improving the flavor and aroma of the dish.
Frying with the onions
Add the sliced onions to the meat in the pan. Keep frying the pork with the onions, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula. Do it carefully, since splatters of hot fat can cause burns.
Fry the meat until the onions turn a lovely deep golden color. Surprisingly, well-fried onions take on a refined, slightly sweet taste. I read somewhere that the sharper the onion, the more sugars it contains, so fried onions end up very sweet.
Take the pan off the heat: the dish is ready when the fried onions are. The size of the meat pieces guarantees the pork cooks through. Total cooking time is about half an hour, which is quite enough from a safety point of view (you know what I mean?).
Serving
Serve with fresh dark rye bread, ideally still warm. Whether you need a side dish is up to you. Honestly, I wouldn’t even call this a main course; it’s more of a hot appetizer.
Add a few fresh herbs to the plate, as well as some spicy adjika or any other hot sauce you like.
Calories and macros
735 kcal
Serving ≈ 280 g
- Protein37 g20% of kcal
- Fat58 g73% of kcal
- Carbs11 g6% of kcal
100 g261 kcalProtein 13.1 gFat 20.7 gCarbs 4.1 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
To Get It Right
Instead of coriander
You can replace the coriander in pork with onions: if you don’t have it or don’t like it, try herbes de Provence or basil. Readers also add a bay leaf, khmeli-suneli, a little garlic or a pinch of lemon zest.
If you have no salo
If there’s no salo, use 2–3 tbsp of ready-made lard for the pork with onions. Vegetable oil works too, but the taste won’t be the same as pork fried in pork fat.
Leftovers
Keep leftover pork with onions covered in the fridge for up to 2 days. Reheat in a frying pan over medium heat, stirring – in the microwave the onions lose their golden crispness.
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Questions and answers
How long do you fry pork in a pan?
Walnut-sized pieces take about half an hour in total: first the meat until browned, then together with the onions until they turn deep golden. That’s enough for the pork to cook through reliably.
How do you fry pork in a pan so it stays tender?
Use shoulder or leg with a little fat on it, cut it into small pieces and fry it in pork fat over medium heat, stirring constantly. Too high a heat dries the meat on the outside before it cooks through.
How do you know when the pork is done?
The onions are your guide: once they’re deep golden, pieces this size are cooked through. To check, cut the largest piece: it should be pale inside, with no pink juices.
Can you fry pork neck or tenderloin this way?
Yes. Pork neck with its layers of fat comes out even juicier. Tenderloin and loin are lean and easy to dry out, so take them off the heat as soon as the onions are golden.
How do you make pork with onions with gravy?
Once the onions are golden, pour in a little hot water – about half a cup, cover and simmer for 10–15 minutes. The meat gets even more tender, and the juices with the fat and onions turn into a gravy.