Cast-iron skillets can be a pork chop’s best friend – Baltimore Sun

By Beth Dooley, The Minnesota Star Tribune

Quick and easy, skillet pork chops make a tasty, comforting weeknight dinner.

Be sure to use boneless chops; they’re a breeze to cook when quickly seared over high heat in a heavy cast-iron skillet. The key, of course, is to buy the right chops. Choose pork from a local farm that raises the slower-growing heritage pork breeds outside in the sun. Their meat is blessed with a little marbling; it’s tastier and more succulent than meat from those raised in confinement.

Local co-ops and butchers, as well as many of our grocers’ meat departments, are now carrying great-quality pork. Ask for chops that are three-quarters to an inch thick and 4 to 5 ounces each. Most butchers are happy to cut to order.

The only trick to cooking the chops is to not ove