What's up everyone?
Today we're making Salt and Pepper Pork Chops,
a dish my dad has made thousands of times.
Hello, everyone!
Today we'll be learning to make Salt and Pepper Pork Chops.
Salt and Pepper Pork Chops have very simple ingredients.
A little over 1 lb of pork,
some green bell pepper, a bit of red bell pepper,
chili pepper, garlic, and green onion.
That's all.
Salt and pepper pork chops are just one of the wildly popular
salt and pepper style dishes in Cantonese cuisine.
There are countless other proteins you can cook in this style,
such as squid, fish, chicken and tofu, to name a few.
Browse through a couple recipes online and you’ll see
that the seasonings can also vary based on your particular preferences,
with some recipes featuring five spice, Sichuan peppercorns,
black pepper, or jalapeños.
Despite all the variety, these dishes all share
in the wonderful combination of spicy, salty flavor
and crispy yet tender texture in each bite.
Let's start with chopping up the vegetables.
We'll only use a fifth of a red bell pepper here.
First, we'll cut it into strips,
then rotate to dice.
This is the green bell pepper.
We'll dice the green bell pepper the same way.
Green onion.
We'll dice one scallion.
Two cloves of garlic.
Smash it.
Then we'll peel, smash, and mince two garlic cloves.
The red chili pepper.
I'll only use half, they're very spicy.
If you want to make it spicier, you can use more.
I grew these myself, harvested them from the backyard.
Addison from Patreon asked,
"What other chilis are great substitutes?"
Some chilis are really spicy,
and some chilis are less spicy.
You can choose whatever you want.
Or, you don't have to add chilis.
The seasoning for the pork chops already includes pepper.
The white pepper adds additional flavor
The chili is also an extra flavor.
So you don't have to add chili, but you can.
Here's our main character.
Let's cut it up first.
Do you see where the grain runs?
Cut those apart.
We don't want these tendons.
This part, cut it apart.
Ho-Ling from Patreon asks,
What specific cuts are best for this dish?
Pork chops are fine, they're okay.
What is this?
This is better.
Something cute, my mom makes these sheets for us every time.
She asks Dad and she painfully writes down all the ingredients.
This will be the original cookbook.
Just copies of that.
Different parts of the pig have different kinds of pork chop.
This one I like the most, it's called Pork Loin Sirloin Chop.
Yeah, in Chinese, it's 里脊肉伴腰肉塊
So if this is a pig, right?
This is the back of the pig and this is the head of the pig.
This part is close to the back leg
The top part of the back leg.
For family cooking, without bones is easier,
because cutting thinly is hard to do with a bone.
So actually, you could cook pork chops with or without bones.
This time, you used no bone.
Yeah, this time, we preferred no bone.
It's easier for our audience to do at home.
Cut it like this.
Slice it open into two pieces.
After cutting the pork to your desired size,
we'll turn the knife sideways
to halve the pieces to around 1/4 inch thick.
All right, what's next?
We need to pound it too.
Use the back of the knife, like this.
How do you prevent the pork from getting too tough?
Pound it with the back of the knife, it'll tenderize it.
When it's tenderized, it won't get tough.
If you like the pieces bigger, cut it like this.
See? Through the middle.
Do you need to fry bigger pieces for longer?
No, it'll be the same because it's the same thickness.
What other salt and pepper dishes are there, Daddy?
Salt and pepper fish, shrimp...
Anything!
Is there salt and pepper beef?
You can salt and pepper anything you like.
You could salt and pepper me! Fry me up and salt and pepper me.
No, we cannot do that!
Grandpa's got jokes, huh?
That's funny, huh?
All right.
The meat is chopped up.
Now we'll make the marinade for the pork chops.
For the pork marinade, we'll mix 2 tbsp of cornstarch,
a little bit less than a 1/2 tsp of baking soda,
1 tbsp of cooking wine, 1 tbsp of oyster sauce,
1 tbsp of light soy sauce, and 1 tbsp of water.
We'll give it a quick mix,
then add 1 tsp of sugar and a 1/2 tsp of salt.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
All right, now add the pork and mix it up.
We'll mix the pork in with the marinade by hand for about one minute.
Let's add another tbsp of water, there isn't enough water.
That's 2 tbsp of water.
How do you know there's not enough water?
When there isn't enough water, the pork can't plump up.
All right, it's good now.
Later, they'll fry up wonderfully.
Let them sit for about an hour,
so the pork can absorb the marinade.
After 30-60 minutes of letting the pork marinate,
we're ready to cook.
I also wanted to make a special shoutout to thank all of our
wonderful Patreon supporters for helping bring this video to life.
If you enjoy our videos and are interested in supporting us directly,
head on over to patreon.com/madewithlau to learn more!
Now we're going to start frying.
Turn the stove on.
We're using corn oil.
Use about 2 cups.
After frying, you can keep using the oil.
You can cook with it again.
The reason we’re using corn oil here instead of something like olive oil
is because olive oil has what's called a lower smoke point,
which is the temperature at which the oil stops shimmering or rippling
and starts smoking or burning.
Smoking oil isn't always a problem
and sometimes even desired for getting that perfect
“wok hei” in your stir fry,
but it's a sign that the oil is breaking down
which can release burnt or bitter flavors
or even harmful free radicals.
Here's a chart that highlights the smoke points
of a few of the most common cooking oils.
There are a few other factors that go into selecting oils
like whether they're neutral or flavored
or refined or unrefined.
Most cooking oil is created by extracting and compressing seeds and nuts
and oils that are “unrefined”, “raw”, or “virgin”
are usually bottled almost immediately.
They generally have more nutrients
but a lower smoke point and shorter shelf life.
Refined oils go through more processing
for a higher smoke point, longer shelf life,
and a more neutral flavor.
For simplicity's sake, for frying,
you generally want to use neutral, refined oils
like vegetable oil, refined olive oil, or corn oil.
While the oil is heating up, mix egg into the pork chops.
While the oil heats up, we'll add half a beaten egg into the marinated pork.
Mix it up.
What does the egg do?
The egg will soak up the cornstarch,
so it'll be crispier when we fry it.
After the egg is thoroughly mixed in,
we'll put 3 tbsp of cornstarch on a large plate,
which we'll use to coat the pork before frying.
As an overview, we'll be frying the pork twice.
First, in batches at around 380° F
for about a minute and a half to cook the pork.
Then a second time, but all together
at around 450° F for 30 seconds
to make the outside coating more crispy.
How do you know the oil is at the right temperature?
If you put something wet in it,
it'll crackle immediately.
That means the oil is hot enough.
It actually might be too hot now.
Let's add a little bit of cold oil.
To cool down the oil a bit,
my dad adds 2 more tbsp of room temperature oil to the pot.
So first, we'll flour it for frying.
We'll coat each piece of pork with cornstarch
before dropping it into the oil to fry.
Let's start frying now. Turn the heat up a bit.
It doesn't need to be too hot.
Medium?
Yeah.
We'll drop them in one at a time, carefully,
and fry them in batches to not overcrowd the pot.
We'll fry the pork until the outside crust is a light golden brown,
or about a minute and a half.
Take it out.
Golden means it's cooked through?
Yes, a golden color means it's cooked.
Right now, the oil is at 380°F.
Yeah.
Let the oil drip off.
We'll heat up the oil more and fry again.
On the first fry,
the moisture is at the surface.
On the second fry,
the juices on the surface have dried,
so the meat will fry up to be fragrant and crispy.
If you don't put them in as one batch, how do you keep track?
You can tell!
When it starts to cook, it turns white,
and once they're fried up, they're golden brown.
Can you see?
Belinda from Patreon asked,
How do you keep the kitchen clean while frying?
That's a good question.
There's no way to fry things and stay clean.
Just wipe everything down as soon as you're done frying.
Some people will open a door
to let the air circulate and go out very fast.
And some people deep fry in the garage, or outside in the yard.
That way the smoke and the oily smell will go out very quickly.
So you don't have to clean the stove area.
You save a lot of time.
All right, after the oil is heated back up,
put the pork in for the second fry.
High heat?
Yeah, high heat, so the oil is hotter.
450°F.
After the oil is hot again,
we'll fry all the pork together for a second time
for about 30 seconds to get the outside extra crispy.
A lot of people asked, including Nancy from Patreon,
How do you keep the meat tender, and the crust crispy,
and the meat juicy as well?
The second fry will make it crispy.
But you have to eat it quickly, while it's crispy.
If it sits out, then it'll lose its crispiness.
For the juiciness, just like Daddy says,
when you marinate the meat, all those juices are absorbed in the meat,
and then you put the egg outside the meat,
it kind of locks the juice inside.
so that will keep the meat very juicy.
All right, it's done frying.
Now to put the dish together, we'll heat up a wok on medium heat.
While we wait, we'll mix together 1 tbsp of garlic salt,
a 1/4 tsp salt and a 1/4 tsp white pepper.
If you've never heard of white pepper,
it's a spice that's ground up from white peppercorns.
Fun fact: black and white pepper actually both come from a fruit-
the same fruit, to be exact.
White peppercorns, black peppercorns, green peppercorns, red peppercorns-
these are all the same berry from the same pepper plant, piper nigrum.
The main difference is when and how they're harvested and processed.
Black peppercorns are dried as soon as they're picked
and their skin becomes black and shriveled.
White peppercorns are soaked for at least a week,
which allows the outer skin to decompose.
This leaves just the seed to be dried
with its distinctive heat and concentrated spiciness
As you'll see in my dad's recipe, even just a 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper
in the seasoning is enough for a flavorful and spicy kick of heat.
Now when the wok is hot, we'll add about a tsp of the oil we just used.
Garlic.
Red chili pepper.
Fry up the garlic first.
The bell peppers all go in.
After stir-frying the garlic and bell peppers for about 30 seconds on high,
we'll add the scallions followed by all of the pork.
After tossing the pork in with the aromatics for about 30 seconds,
we'll add our seasoning.
All right, let's add our garlic salt.
You don't pour it all at once?
It'd be hard to distribute evenly if you poured it all in.
After adding in our seasoning, we'll cook for another 15-20 seconds
before turning off the heat.
All right, turn the heat off.
Smells amazing!
We'll continue to mix for another 20-30 seconds
until the seasoning is evenly coating the pork,
then we can plate it.
I want to try one.
Go for it!
Is it too salty?
No, oh my god.
Tender and smooth inside, crispy on the outside.
Okay!
All right, friends, Salt and Pepper Pork Chops are finished!
Hope you all enjoy it!
Hong Doy, time to eat!
Give Yeh Yeh first.
Yeah, good boy!
Here you go, Mom.
Cheers!
I love that.
It doesn't even taste like pork.
When I go to restaurants,
someone will ask me, "Okay, you can order your favorite dish!"
in my mind, this dish will pop up.
Really?! I thought you didn't...
With pork?
Yeah, pork.
Wow!
It's one of my very favorite dishes to eat at restaurants.
And Daddy says, "Why do you always order that?"
I like this because it helps me have such a good appetite.
Okay, what's your favorite?
What's your favorite salt and pepper dish?
Doesn't really matter, I eat them all.
For me, salt and pepper squid!
Yeah!
I love squid!
Hong Doy.
That's my favorite too.
I am my mother's son.
Do you like fried squid too?
Yeah!
That's good!
Right now I'm craving it with fish.
Yeah, I just want it with thin fish, so crispy.
Now we gotta do both of them.