Most of you know that I can’t cook.Well, I am not going to take up valuable front page space with my personal rantings. So, you are either here because you need a laugh or you are trying to figure out how twisted I am. 30 something years of not knowing how to cook is starting to take it’s toll in the social circles. Now being a bachlor for most of those 30 something years ment that everyone else cooks for you. My wife, god bless her, is a good cook and keeps me well fed. However, there are those times, when people just “expect” me to cook or BBQ or whatever.
Well the other day I am at the local market and they had this stuffed pork chop thing that looked like it would be pretty good. I mean, it was only about $6 so if I messed it up, no big loss.
Well, tonight was the night. I am smart enough to consult someone for help so like any good geek, I turn to google. There was a wealth of information on how to cook porkchops but none really seemed to apply. Like chicken, I know that you have to be careful not to cross contaminate you pork. That much I knew.
I heated the pan, threw in some oil and smacked this wonderful piece of crawfish stuffed porkchop into the center of the pan. There it sat and sizzled for 6-8 minutes and I flipped it over for another 6-8. Not knowing what “done” pork looked like, I reached into the cooking drawer of fun and pulled out my meat thermometer. Now “Pork” is up around the 160 degree mark. The slab in the pan is sitting at 140 and not looking like it will budge.
I crank up the heat. This in turn cranks up the smoke which in turn cranks up the smoke alarm. Long story short, nothing I seem to be doing will get the temp up and the smoke down. So, with the help of my wife (who has been patiently observing this whole process), I dump out my charbroiled porkchop into a plate, scrape the stuffing out and proceed to cut it in half.
After this was done, the two halves cooked quickly and evenly. It wasn’t even too dry. Just scrape off a bit here and there and it might even be called somewhat a success. All in all, I am a bit disapointed with my first attempt but my lovely wife tells me that it was a difficult piece of meat to cook. As I reflect on it, I would have probably done much better with a BBQ pit or something of the like instead of a pan (which BTW will probably need to be sand blasted to get the gunk out of it now). Oh well, lesson learned.