Pan Seared Pork

Happy New Year, readers!

I hope that your 2010 is off to a great start.  If you're like me at all, the holidays likely put a damper on making cooking fun for just a little while.  This week I've started to get back into the swing of things.  My apologies for the recent hiatus.  I hope that together we can make 2010 a very successful year in the kitchen!

This past week, I decided to make pork, green beans, and salad for dinner one night.  Did I mention I'm trying to trim the carbs so that my pants button?  At any rate, here's how it went.

I decided to pan sear the pork, prior to baking in the oven until fully cooked.  In doing so, I learned a very valuable lesson.  While eating the pork, I realized that it was strangely tougher and chewier than pork loins of the recent past.  After asking Reid what he thought might be wrong, we realized that the one thing I had done different this time was the pan searing.

Moral of the story... the pork was "strangely tougher and chewier" because the pan searing phase of my prep occurred for too long and at too low a temperature. When pan searing pork, or any other meat for that matter, the key is high temperature, short sear time. The main purpose of searing is to lock in essential juices in the meat.  This is quickly accomplished at high temperatures.

It is worth noting that when pan searing with olive oil be certain to use use standard olive oil as opposed to Extra Virgin olive oil.  The "Extra Virgin" type has a much lower burn point, and this is critical to be aware of when working with higher pan temperatures than normal.

Don't be afraid to try new things in the kitchen this year.  And don't expect that everything I post will be a success story.  If it were, I wouldn't be learning anything and I wouldn't be helping to keep you from making the same mistake in your own kitchens.

Have a "sear"iously great weekend!