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How to cook Pork
Since pork is such a mild flavored meat, it will combine with
many different flavors and cuisines. When buying pork, look for an even pink
color, with little fat marbling and a thin rim of fat around the edge of the
meat. The flesh should be firm and should smell sweet. Cook pork to an internal
temperature of 160 degrees F; this holds true for roasts, tenderloin, and pork
chops.
Tips for Tenderness
- Avoid freezing whenever possible to eliminate moisture loss that occurs
during thawing. The moisture loss in thawing results in less tender meat.
- Keep pork from drying out in the refrigerator by keeping it tightly
wrapped. If the meat dries out it will become tough.
- Cook to the proper temperature but do not overcook or the meat will become
dry and tough.
- Let meat rest for 10 to 15 minutes before carving to allow juices to be
distributed throughout the flesh.
- Cutting meat across the grain will produce slices with shorter fibers,
resulting in more tender pieces.
Tips to reduce Fat
- When purchasing pork, look for cuts with lower fat content, such as cuts
from the loin or leg.
- Before cooking, trim visible fat to reduce fat content almost in half.
- Cook pork using a low fat cooking method, such as roasting, grilling,
broiling, steaming, poaching, braising, or stewing.
- Prepare pork with herbs and spices to enhance the flavor rather than using
sauces.
- To reduce the amount of fat used when frying, stir-frying, sautéing, or
searing pork in a pan, use a nonstick skillet which requires less added fat,
or use a nonstick skillet with a fat free nonstick cooking spray.
- If using the drippings from roasted meat to make sauces and soups, cool in
the refrigerator to cause the fat to rise to the surface. The fat will
solidify, making it easy to remove and discard.
- After cooking ground pork, place in a strainer and rinse under hot water
to remove excess fat.
- After stewed meat is finished cooking, let cool and then chill. Once the
stew is chilled the fat will rise to the top and can be easily scraped off
to be discarded rather than remaining in the stew. Leaving the stew sit
overnight in the refrigerator will also enhance its flavor.
Cooking Tips
- Do not overcook pork or it will become dry and tough. The threat of
trichinosis is eliminated when the pork is heated to 137°F but the USDA
recommends cooking pork to 160°F to be safe. Cooking to 160°F will result
in clear or slightly pink tinted juices and provides meat that is juicy and
tender.
- When frying or sautéing, do not place a cover over the pan. This will
lock in moisture and cause the meat to braise or steam.
- Lightly coat pork with vegetable oil to keep it from drying out during
cooking.
- Before roasting pork, sear all sides to create a flavorful crusty surface
on the meat.
- Do not overcrowd pork cuts when cooking. Leaving space between them will
allow them to brown and cook more evenly.
- If using a marinade for basting, set some aside before placing raw pork in
it to marinate. Never reuse marinade that the meat was marinated in.
- Poach uncooked sausages for a few minutes before frying, broiling or
grilling. Sausage casings should not be pierced before poaching. Piercing
will cause the juices to be released and sausages will become dry.
- Do not partially cook pork and then store in refrigerator to use later. It
must be cooked until done. It can be partially cooked or browned using one
method, such as microwaving or searing, and then immediately cooked until
done using a different method, such as roasting, frying, grilling or
broiling.
There are five main cuts of pork:
- Leg (ham, cutlets, boneless roast)
- Side (spareribs, bacon)
- Loin (rib roast, sirloin roast, rib chop, loin chop, country style ribs,
tenderloin, and Canadian-style bacon)
- Shoulder Butt (blade roast, ground pork, sausage)
- Picnic Shoulder (smoked hocks, picnic roast)
Notice that the loin, the most tender part of the animal, is where most of
the common consumer cuts come from. This means that pork should be cooked like
any other low fat meat: either for a short period of time at high temperatures,
or for longer times at lower temperatures. Moist heat, such as braising,
poaching, simmering, and crockpot cooking, also works well.
The amount of cooking time really is based on how thick the cut of pork is.
Thinly cut pork chops can be pounded and then sauteed for 5-7 minutes and
they'll be done. Thicker pork chops, up to 1-1/2" thick, can cook in the
crockpot for 8-9 hours. Pork roasts usually need to cook for hours. And the
super-tender pork tenderloin can be thinly sliced and cooked in seconds in a
stir-fry.
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