Crispy Apple Crusted Pork Chops

Fall revival at New Hope, and I cooked for all four nights because the cooking is the covenant and the covenant does not break for grief. I made the food I have made for every revival: fried chicken Monday, smothered pork chops Tuesday, beef stew Wednesday, baked chicken Thursday. Four nights, four hundred plates, one woman at the stove who is different from the woman who stood there last year but who still produces the same chicken at the same temperature with the same love, because the love does not change just because the heart it comes from has been broken. Broken hearts still love. Sometimes they love harder, the way broken soil grows deeper roots.

Calvin preached on Wednesday night — his night in the rotation. He preached about Job. About loss and faith and the refusal to curse God when God seems to have cursed you. He did not mention Marcus by name, but the congregation knew. They always know. And when Calvin said sometimes faith is not a feeling, it is a decision, I said amen, and the amen was not for the theology. The amen was for the truth. Because faith is a decision. I decide every morning to get up. I decide every morning to turn on the stove. I decide every morning to cook for people who need feeding. The deciding is the faith. The cooking is the prayer. And the prayer does not need to feel good to be real.

The guest preacher this year was an older woman, Reverend Gloria Patterson from Montgomery, who preached with the quiet authority of someone who has buried more people than she can count and has kept preaching anyway. She found me in the kitchen on Thursday night, after the service, while I was washing pots. She stood in the kitchen doorway and said: I lost my son too. Twenty years ago. A drive-by shooting. He was nineteen. She did not say anything else for a full minute. We stood there, two mothers separated by twenty years and one highway and the same unchosen membership in the same terrible club. Then she said: the kitchen saved me too. And she left. And I stood at the sink with my hands in the water and cried, not from grief but from recognition, from the specific relief of being seen by someone who has walked the same road and can tell you: the road does not end. It turns. It always turns. You just cannot see the turn from where you are standing.

After the revival I went home and sat at the kitchen table and ate the last piece of pound cake from Thursday's dessert and the eating was quiet and the house was quiet and I thought about Reverend Patterson and her son and her kitchen and the twenty years she has been cooking through her loss, and I thought: twenty years. That is where I am going. Twenty years of cooking through this. Twenty years of feeding through this. I can do twenty years. I can do forever. As long as there is a stove and a skillet and a hungry person, I can do forever.

Tuesday night has always been pork chop night at New Hope revival, and it will be Tuesday pork chop night for as long as I am standing at that stove. This version — crusted with breadcrumbs and a little sweetness from dried apple — is not exactly what I make for four hundred, but it is what I make when I am cooking just for myself, or for Calvin, or for the quiet nights when the house needs feeding the same way a congregation does. Reverend Patterson said the kitchen saved her. I believe that. I believe it every time I hear the sizzle hit the pan.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 bone-in pork chops, about 3/4 inch thick (roughly 8 oz each)
1/2 cup dried breadcrumbs (plain or panko)
1/3 cup finely chopped dried apple slices
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons vegetable oil or canola oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Instructions

Make the crust. In a shallow bowl or plate, combine breadcrumbs, chopped dried apple, garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, pepper, salt, and thyme. Stir together until evenly mixed.
Set up the dredge. Place flour in one shallow dish and beaten eggs in another. Line them up: flour first, then egg, then the apple-breadcrumb mixture.
Coat the chops. Pat pork chops dry with paper towels. Dredge each chop in flour, shaking off the excess. Dip in egg, letting the extra drip off. Press firmly into the breadcrumb mixture on both sides, making sure the crust adheres evenly.
Heat the skillet. In a large cast iron or heavy-bottomed skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add butter and let it foam and subside.
Sear the chops. Add chops in a single layer — do not crowd the pan; work in batches if needed. Cook 4 to 5 minutes on the first side without moving them, until the crust is deep golden brown. Flip and cook another 4 to 5 minutes, until the internal temperature reaches 145°F on an instant-read thermometer.
Rest before serving. Transfer chops to a wire rack or plate. Let rest 5 minutes. The crust will stay crisp and the juices will settle back into the meat.

Nutrition (per serving)

Crispy Apple Crusted Pork Chops — Tuesday Night at New Hope