Pork

For the last 3-4 years while I was on residence, there was one dish that I never would try to cook - pork. My parents, who are always concerned about my health as well as practicality, would never buy me pork because it needs to be thoroughly cooked. Although I don't necessarily like some of my parents' buys (such as that VITA sugarcane drink they buy all the time for me), I certainly didn't argue with the lack of pork, because I could never figure out how to cook it. I have learned over time how to cook beef and chicken so that they are somewhat tasty - cooked properly and juicy. But my pork, with the few attempts that I had, would always turn out rock solid and tough to eat.

Today I made pork chops that were actually edible. I just wanted to document my recipe as a baseline for improvement in future.

- 2 pork sirloin (or better cut) chops, boneless

- approximately 16 oz of quality (eg. branded) cream of mushroom soup

- 1/4 onion, diced

- 4 white mushrooms, diced

- seasonings

The night before, I seasoned my pork lightly with salt, pepper and soy sauce.

I sauteed my onions and mushrooms and put some of them on the bottom of an oiled, small baking tray. I lightly browned the pork on the same pan (on both sides of the pork) and then put that in the pan on top of the mushrooms and onions. I poured mushroom soup over the whole thing so that the pork was approximately covered, along with the remainder of the onions and mushrooms.

Cover pan with tin foil.

Place in preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes (chops were quite thin - less than 1 inch thick, I would go up to 40-45 minutes if you had more chops or thicker chops). They turned out well, but they could have done with 1-2 minutes less in the oven.