Alex bought us some butterflied pork chops from the Meat Salesroom. I don’t know that I’d ever had butterflied pork chops around, so I decided I wanted to try to make stuffed pork chops.
I didn’t have a recipe for this, so I looked around. I printed out 8 recipes. Even as I started typing this entry (which is posted much, much later), I didn’t know which one I’m going to make.
One (from Paula Deen) more or less says to stuff the pork chops with sausage and cook until they reach 160F. Others involve making a cornbread stuffing to put in them. I’ve never even made a stuffing. Still others take regular bread crumbs, which is more manageable (I can quick-dry some bread in the oven), but then take ingredients like raisins and apples, which would create a sweet-and-savory dish, and which I’m not really such a big fan of. I usually like to keep my sweet and my salty/savory separate.
The winner was… Martha Stewart’s Stuffed Pork Chops recipe. She used leftover stuffing, so I figured I could make the box of stuffing mix that I had at home. I just put on however much stuffing I wanted, which was likely a problem, since it made it hard for me to cook the pork chops to a temperature I was comfortable with.
I don’t feel like including a picture here. I was incredibly disappointed – but I think I might have been regardless of what recipe I made.
First, I think that the pork chops I had were too thick to really justify stuffing. They were butterflied pork chops, and I was trying to figure out what to do with them. These butterflied pork chops were 1-inch thick, which made them 2-inch thick when folded over. Not really material for stuffing. This would have been fine with something very thin layered between, but then it probably should have been a sauce or a little fruit for flavor (or cheese, if you happen to like cheese).
Second, I think that I wouldn’t like stuffing-stuffed pork chops regardless of the thickness or the recipe. The stuffing was soggy – the boxed stuffing I’ve made generally has been, unfortunately, but the recipe as well called for adding broth to the pan and covering it, creating steam which can then infiltrate the stuffing. I have texture issues, and I hate soggy bread, which is pretty much what this stuffing ended up being.
I’ve got several recipes, so I may try making stuffed pork chops again sometime when I’ve got pork of the proper thickness. But I won’t make this recipe again, because I really don’t think it works for me. That’s why I’m labeling this a FAIL. If you like stuffed pork chops (and Alex enjoyed this, I think), you can try the recipe – it would probably work for you.
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