This column will concentrate on what The Pork Board's successful advertising campaign has labeled “the other white meat”, i.e. the leaner cuts of pork. Pork breeders have concentrated on reducing fat and pork is now 31% lower in fat than it was 20 years ago. Pork tenderloin, boneless pork chops (sirloin, top loin, loin, and rib), and boneless pork roasts have less saturated fat than a chicken thigh. A 3-ounce serving of each of these cuts has less than 200 calories. But there is a cost. With less fat, pork dries out easily and overcooking results in dry, tasteless meat. But it is easy to both cook pork safely, and add great flavor.
First, cook pork to a lower temperature than yesterday’s cookbooks advised. Cooks were admonished that pork had to be cooked to 185 degrees in order to erase all risk of trichinosis. However, the trichinosis parasite dies at 137 degrees so 185 degrees is overkill. Further, trichinosis was common when pigs were fed casual slops – they ate infected feed. Today’s pig, however, is fed sanitized feed. As a result, it has been over 20 years since a case of trichinosis has been reported in the U.S.
You can achieve a solid safety margin by cooking a pork roast to a temperature of 150 degrees and letting it rest for 10 minutes. Alternatively, if you want to rest meat for only 5 minutes, especially with chops and tenderloins, cook the meat to 155 degrees. In order to monitor doneness properly, use an instant read thermometer.
Next, ignore thin cuts of pork entirely. Due to the lack of fat, thin pork chops are almost impossible to cook without drying out. Buy pork chops at least one inch thick. This thickness also allows you to use a thermometer to test for doneness. If you want a good crust on either a pork chop or roast, sear the surface of the chop or roast over high heat, and then finish cooking in indirect heat. You can use the oven, a section of a gas grill with its heat source turned off, or on a charcoal grill section that isn’t directly over any coals.
