Panko Pork

Recipe originally submitted to GBSFood by CapnBry, Submitted here by Lovelee. All typos have been lovingly preserved.

Summary

When you're having special company over (read: sex), and you're cooking, you want to make something that looks impressive, tastes delicious, doesn't fill you up too much, and is nearly impossible to F up. In this vain, I present my Panko-crusted Pork with Aioli. I think this is enough by itself, but you could probably throw some basmati rice or a nice pilaf on the side and really win big.

For the Main dish:

• 2 thin-sliced (9.525mm) boneless pork chops
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1 egg

For the Sauce:

• 2 tbls mayonnaise
• 1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
• 2 tsp white wine vinegar
• 1 small garlic clove, chopped fine
• 1/4 cup (4 tbls) vegetable oil

For the Vegetable:

• 1/2 pound green beans
• 1/2 a small red onion
• 1 tblsp drained capers

For Misc:

• Flour
• Water
• Salt
• Pepper
• 2 tbls butter
• 2 tbls oil

Mise en Place

The freakin' capers got all buddy up to the mayo in this shot. They aren't in the sauce, they go with the veggie. Not shown: Pepper and Oil. They were on location in Vancouver when the cast photo was taken,

Mix all the sauce ingredients except the vegetable oil together in a bowl. Slowly add the oil while mixing. It helps to have all the ingredients here close to room temperature to prevent the sauce from breaking apart. You should end up with a smooth creamy looking result. Season with a little salt, and put aside. Finished product in the inset:

This makes like 10 times more aioli than we need, but I can't see cutting down the recipe to any smaller quantity. After dinner, put the left over aioli in a paper sack. Take the paper sack to your neighbor's front door. Light the sack on fire, ring the doorbell and dive behind a bush. If your neighbor is home (you probably should have checked this before you started a fire on their porch) giggle in adolescent delight as he attempts to stamp out the fire only to get garlic mayonnaise sauce all over his good slippers.

Once you actually start cooking, everything is going to be done fast so now is a good time to get everything prepared. This is known as 'mise en place' or 'in place' or literally 'installed'. Do not install any ingredients though, or you may spend your evening telling the ER nurse an embarrassing story instead of dining on swine.

Get yourself a bowl and put the egg and a little water in it and whisk it up. Next, get a plate or a piece of parchment and put a cup of flour on it. Place that to the left of the bowl. Placing it to the right of the bowl is not acceptable. If you're really set on putting something to the right of the bowl I'll let you in on a little secret: there's going to be something to the right of the bowl later. Get another plate / piece of parchment and put your panko on it. Place this to the right of the bowl. Aren't you glad you didn't put the flour there now? You would have looked a little silly wouldn't you? Anyway, you should have (from left-to-right) flour, beated egg, panko.

If you can't get panko bread crumbs, dramatically throw everything in the trash and go out to dinner. There's really no reason to make this if you don't have the panko. For those of you who don't know what panko is, it is a flaky sliced Japanese breadcrumb as opposed to the granular standard kind. It makes fluffy crispy goodness on things:

Now get your half red onion (or if you don't have a half handy, get a whole onion and cut it in half. This is known as improvising) and slice it up *thin*. We need the onions to cook fast, so anything thicker than 2 American nickels (or 7 Romanian bani) is right out. If you mess up, you've always got the other half. If you mess that half up too, put the whole thing back together with scotch tape and take it back to Publix for a replacement. They'll take anything back.

Locate and drain your capers. If you see any of their anti-oxidant bioflavinoid rutin pouring out, your capers are defective and should be returned to Publix when you take the onion back.

Let's cook!

Start a pot of boiling water for the beans, and heat up a 2 large skillets over "sautee" heat. Throw the beans in the water with some salt once it starts boiling. In each skillet add 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp oil.

Take your thin pork chops and put them in the flour, shake off the excess, put them in the egg scrambowl, then toss in the panko. Take the chops and put them into one of the frying pans. Start your timer. You don't have a timer? I told you you needed a timer! Ok, just count mississippis. At t + 0:

Put your sliced onion into the other skillet, and start to sautee. We're looking for carmelization.

At 180 mississippis flip your pork chops. They should be golden and brown. If they're not, you're not a failure like Mom says, but you do lack the ability to sustain your own life-- a characteristic even Neanderthal man assessed. Listen to these things cooking after you've flipped them. If you don't hear sizzling, the pan is dry and you should add a little more olive oil to help them brown more easily. At t + 180:

By this point your green beans should be about done. They should still be firm. Drain them and put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking. If you don't have an ice back, build a time machine and go back in time 1 minute and tell yourself to take the green beans off a minute earlier. Then make up some lotto numbers and tell your past self them.

When the onions are cooked, add the capers, a little fresh ground pepper, and the cooked green beans to the pan. Toss to mix em all up.

300 mississippis. All done! Plate a piece of pork, dollup a tablespoon of aioli into the center of the meat, and cover with a stack of greenbeanonioncaperpepper mix. Larger Image

See how much aioli we have left over? You know what to do.

I SHOULD NOT PUT "TL;DR" IN A POST.

Here is a summary instead:

Boil green beans in salted water, drain. Dredge pork in flour, then egg, then panko. Pan fry each side 2-3 minutes. Sautee onions, add green beans, capers, pepper.