Polish · Main
Kotlet Schabowy
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, acid holding everything up to the light.
Ingredients
- 4 boneless pork loin chops, 150 g each, cut across the grain
- 80 g plain flour
- 2 eggs, beaten with 1 tbsp water
- 150 g fine dry white breadcrumbs, bułka tarta
- 200 g lard, or clarified butter
- Fine salt and white pepper
- 1 lemon, in wedges
The skills inside
Resting meat & slicing against the grain
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Nick through the rim of fat and silverskin at 2 cm intervals all round each chop.
- Beat the chops between plastic to an even 5 mm, thinner at the edges than the middle, then salt both sides and leave 10 minutes until the surface looks damp. 10 min
- Pass through flour, then egg, then crumbs, pressing only lightly; crumbs packed down glue themselves to the meat and turn to sand.
- Heat the lard 1 cm deep to 170C (338F). Slide in one cutlet and tilt the pan so hot fat washes over the top; it should sizzle steadily, not roar.
- Fry about 3 minutes a side to deep gold, then rest on a wire rack, never on paper, so the underside stays crisp. 3 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Resting meat & slicing against the grain 56 recipes
- It came off the heat BEFORE the target temperature, measured with a probe rather than by time, because carryover keeps driving the inside up after it is out.
- The probe went into the coldest likely part rather than the easiest one to reach: the reading that matters is the lowest one, not the first one.
- Rested for a time matched to its size, somewhere warm, and not cut into partway through to see how it is doing.
- The board is nearly dry when it is finally cut. A spreading pool means it was cut too early, and that liquid should have stayed inside.
- The grain was found and the knife went ACROSS it, so the fibres are cut short, and the blade was sharp enough that the slices hold together rather than tearing.
Where it goes wrong It was cut straight off the heat, usually because everything else was ready. The muscle is still contracted and the juice still driven to the centre, so it runs out onto the board; the meat is drier than it ever needed to be, and the flavour that left it is sitting in a puddle under the knife.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Riesling or Grenache
- Also Right
- Cru Beaujolais
- From the Taps
- Farmhouse saison
- Zero-Proof
- Cloudy apple juice, chilled
Pork loves fruit and gentle sweetness: orchard-note whites and low-tannin reds flatter it where heavy oak flattens.
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