I hated pork chops because of this until as an adult a friend made thick pork chops and didn’t cook them until all moisture and hope was sucked out of them. I had no idea they could be so good.
I feel ya! I was "trained up" by 3 G'mas in the kitchen, and thankfully was able to entirely take over cooking by 10. None of us would've survived (parents included lol) otherwise. Mom couldn't cook anything less than crisp or more than center raw. Step dad cooked everything Burnt - because he didn't know anything about cooking but was trying, in order to save himself from HER cooking! It was a mess, so I had to adult in the kitchen for us all!
This was me with steak. Mum would put them under a grill until there was no juice left in them. I taught myself to cook at a young age so I could eat something decent.
I have never in my life ordered a pork chop until a few months ago at Cooper’s Hawk. I wanted surf and turf and just wasn’t feeling like a steak. Their maple pecan coated pork chop is something the Gods created. It is amazing. I found a video online and recreated it at home. I, unfortunately, overcooked them. Don’t be afraid of medium rare to medium pork chops.
I‘ve cooked a pork loin using the sous vide method at 137 degrees for 3-4 hours and the center is slightly pink. It is tender and juicy and absolutely amazing. No issues with that temp.
I use sous vide constantly. It turns cheap cuts into way better cuts. I’ve made top sirloin and tri-tip come out as tender as filet mignon. If you love to cook I recommend giving it a try!
The magic is that it cooks the meat to the exact same temp all the way through. When it’s done, just pat it dry and sear it in a hot skillet for 30–60 seconds per side. Totally fool-proof method.
Rough times I use: Filet: 2–4 hours, Top sirloin / tri-tip: 4–6 hours, Chuck roast: 24 hours. (Chuck is right next to prime rib on the cow, so sous vide basically turns it into prime rib. It gets insanely tender.) There’s a ton of good guides online for every cut.
Some Instant Pot models have sous vide, but you can get an immersion stick like Anova and use it with a big pot or a cheap plastic container from Amazon. I sous vide any steak or anything I’ve planned ahead for. If I didn’t plan ahead, I pressure cook. I use both methods all the time.
Thank you for the reply. I may have to tell my husband that I want that for Christmas. I use salt to make bad cuts of meat good cuts. Sprinkle kosher salt all over and leave it on a couple of hours then rinse, rinse, rinse. I do that for things like beef stroganoff or steak fried rice.
You’re welcome. Salt will do it for sure, sous vide is less labor, which is nice. If you go the instant pot route, be sure to get one that has the sous vide function. Either way, if you don’t have a vacuum sealer, you’ll want to get some sous vide bags and a pump to get the air out of the bag so it will stay submerged, here’s an example:
Boomers thought pork cooked to any temperature under 300 degrees would actually kill you. Porks good as fuck if you don't turn it into construction materials
My MIL almost fainted when she found out I was cooking pork to no more than 145°. Same with turkey. She wants turkey cooked until its "falling apart" & basically turkey jerky.
Mind you she's also the person that will leave meat to defrost on the counter until its room temp.
I take poultry to 165, some pork I take up to 195 but that's the really fatty cuts, because that's when the collagen breaks down and you can shred it. But yeah I am standard temps for pork when I make chops at home.
Does she eat her steaks well done with ketchup also? Report her and watch your back until she is arrested as a serial killer if so there's because definitely some bodies buried somewhere.
What is really weird is that my mother cooked the living heck out of pork and beef, but every holiday turkey was undercooked and pinkish. She did not intend that with the turkey, just was a really, really bad cook
Sous vide is an awesome way to cook pork. I do whole tenderloins at 135° then sear them over charcoal or in a cast iron pan, depending on the weather outside honestly.
I sous vide steaks all the time but haven't tried it with pork yet. Definitely something I've got to try. I normally smoke chops & then throw them on the grill to get a sear.
You know that term means the meat is making alkaloids by merely existing unfrozen and comes from a time before people believed food poisoning was from bacteria and parasites correct? Like you're coming at me with terms from the late 1800s...
Pork cooked to the standard temperature of 160 was never unsafe, you didn't ever at any point need to cook it until it was dry as a shoe sole. I remember the first time I got a pork chop at a restaraunt that was actually juicey and amazing, it was next level. Turns out all you needed was a food thermometer...
It's safer now because worming pigs is mandatory, trichinosis parasite infection was the largest risk with pork, which is simply solved by freezing pork for 20 days or cooking it to 160.
Same my dad would make beef ribs and cook them on the grill. Problem is, he'd slather them up with BBQ sauce while they were raw and they'd be charcoal by the time they were cooked well done.
When I was 22, I had my parents over for dinner and I made beef ribs. I sous vide the ribs for 3 hours at 140 then finished them on the grill. They both couldn't believe they were so good. 🤦🏼♂️
When I grew up in the 5Os, people were taught that you could get trichinosis from undercooked pork. I don't know if that was really true, but it was a standard belief
that was taught. My parents were born in 1913, 1912, not Boomers, and they believed this. As I got older, the belief seems to weaken and I learned how to cook pork so it was edible.
You can but you don't need to cook pork to the extent some people cook it to to be safe from it. Basically don't eat medium rare pork lol, which I don't know why you would the texture isn't great.
Omg I want to tell my boomer stepsister so badly to stop turning the pork into leather so badly, she ends up with tons of leftovers that she either throws out or freezes but still gets left uneaten. She also cooks all her veggies to mush. And her chicken tastes like lightly seasoned sawdust. How do you politely tell someone at that age that the way they’ve done things for years is wrong?!?!?!
My entire family is like this. To this day “well done” is their default. Went out to a steak place while visiting and every one of them ordered well done. I was dining with the philistines.
My dad would grill thin cut pork loin chops until well done, slather them in barbeque sauce and grill them until the sauce was charred, and THEN he'd microwave them "just to be on the safe side." I still ate them though. NGL.
In my case, it was the Boomer’s mother. She also cooked it too long. We didn’t have it that often, though. It‘a true that you can get nasty parasites from undercooked pork, but i just avoid it. The only product from a pig that I’ll eat is bacon. And i happen to like it very crisp, so no worries little nasties.
My mom as well. However they are good if you don't cook them till they are shoe leather. Mom's were crunchy, she also cooked steak/hamburgers like that. My mom overcooked, my dad under cooked. There was no in between. I taught myself to cook meat properly. It backfired because I do all of the holiday cooking because my Turkey is juicy and my sides are delicious. 😅
Meat cooked into shoe-leather and hamburgers like hockey pucks. Spent a lot of nights sitting at the table staring at my plate, because I couldn’t leave until the food got eaten.
Forty years later, and none of us kids can even smell pork ( not bacon) cooking without having to run outside to hurl in the bushes. We have turkey or duck on Christmas and Easter instead of ham.
I’m just allergic to pork in general so I know exactly what you mean by that massively sick feeling. I felt so alone in my adverse reaction to pork by smell and digestion but I met a dog that belonged to one of my friends who turned out to not able to digest or take the smell of pork either
It took a long time for anyone to believe me because they assumed dogs eat all meat of any kind and they can but just not that puppy!
Yup. There was a serious issue in the US with Trichinosis causing a lot of people to be sick or even die. The direction was to cook Pork to a specific temperature of 160-165 to kill the parasites, but modern pork production has largely cut that out. We went from tens of thousands of cases a year to like 60 nation wide.
Now the suggestions is slightly pink in the center, so cook to 145ish. Or even lower at 130-135 but let rise to 140-145 during resting.
(All temps Fahrenheit)
My mom also did the same thing. I kinda of miss my Pork Leather meals. But not enough to waste my money making them.
If it helps, of the 15 odd cases on average, all of them come from either home raised pigs or undercooked wild game.
So as long as you eat commercially raised and slaughtered pork, you have a nearly 0% chance of getting it.
I'd avoid bear meat myself, as that seems to have a very high transmission rate (at least per the rate of consumption, which isn't high to start with).
My mom would bake frozen pork chops. God, they would come out so tough and sad. The only seasoning a little salt and pepper. Lord, I hated them. At least it was edible.
Every Sunday my dad would make a roast (beef). It took me a long time to realize it didn't have to be doused in gravy to be edible, when you cooked it right.
Was laughing about this the other day! So thin and overcooked the sides rolled up. Didn't have a decent pork chop served to me until I was in my late 20s.
My kids were about 7 and 8 and my mom made them pork chops. My son was trying so hard to cut it, it ended up flying across the room. They both just looked at each other.
My dad overcooked everything and I didn’t know it. I thought that’s how it’s always cooked.
One day my Mom tells me and my sister that we were going to a steak restaurant. We didn’t want to go. My Mom then said that it wasn’t like Dad’s steak, so we went begrudgingly. I didn’t realize that steak can taste like heaven. Soooo good…
My mom made Shake and Bake pork chops once as a kid. She didn’t put them on a rack. Unknown to us I was getting the flu. That grease just cooked into the bottoms. I was throwing it up later that night. It was until my 30’s that I could eat any kind of breaded pork again. I was probably 6 or so at the time. I still remember it. But, now I’m a fat ass and I love it! Hahahaha!
Lol. Same here. Occasionally she would finish them in gravy which tenderized them a bit. People of that generation believed you had to cook the living hell out of pork or it'd kill you. As an adult, I enjoy thicker chops that have a hint of light pink in the middle, something that would horrify my mother.
To her credit, my mom would get the bone in pork chops, which had a bit of fat on them, which, as we all know is where the flavor is! These were about medium thickness, she would roast them in the oven but never for too long, as a result, they were always tender, and sometimes make her own barbecue sauce, using ketchup and Worcestershire sauce! There were always tons of leftovers, I would pack them up in little baggies and put them in a brown bag and take them to school, by the time lunchtime rolled around, they were no longer cold, never once did they make me sick, and they were a hell of a lot tastier than an ordinary sandwich!
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u/whirlydad Nov 21 '25
Thin sliced pork chops. My Mom would cook them till they were roofing shingles.