He says his cookbook, one of the America’s Test Kitchen volumes, tells you how to avoid overcooking the pork which seems to cause the dryness. The trick to cooking a thin cut of pork without overdoing it is to use two levels of heat: start with medium high temp so the outsides get seared; then flip the meat and reduce the heat. Test the meat with a paring knife in the middle—it should be just a little pink in the middle. Remove from heat and let the residual heat will allow the completion of cooking (at the point of 135 degrees by thermometer at dead center of pork.) For smothered chops, sear as above; remove from pan and proceed to make gravy; return pork to pan and allow to simmer in gravy (low heat) for about 30 minutes. Hope this helps!
Thanks, I will try it. We had pork chops last night, with the bone in; I think they’re always better with the bone.
The one time we made them absolutely PERFECT was an evening when we started them in the oven, remembered an errand we had to run, turned off the oven, and came back an hour later to finish them off. Not dry at all, and wonderful. We’ve never been able to reproduce that.
-JT