Thick bone in chops, cast iron pan, ordinary gas hob with an extractor that is basically decorative. Every time I do the traditional hard sear first the kitchen fills with smoke and the alarm goes, and the middle is still uneven. People keep telling me to reverse sear but I have never tried it and I am not sure it is worth it at 4cm. What actually gives edge to edge doneness at home without setting the flat on fire?
At 4cm reverse sear is genuinely worth it and the smoke problem largely disappears with it. Low oven, somewhere around 100 to 120C, pull the chops when the centre is about 5 degrees under your target, rest them while the pan gets ripping hot, then 60 to 90 seconds a side and done. Current guidance for whole cuts of pork has been 63C plus a three minute rest for years now rather than the old cook it to grey advice, so aim to pull around 57 to 58. The sear is short because the surface is already dry from the oven, and a 90 second sear makes a fraction of the smoke of a four minute one.
Worth adding that a rack over a tray in the oven matters here, otherwise the underside steams and you are back to a wet surface.
The dry surface making the sear shorter is the mechanism I was missing. I assumed reverse sear just moved the smoke to the end.
On smoke specifically, since that is your actual constraint. Wipe the pan out between batches, because it is the little bits of burnt residue and stray oil that produce most of the smoke rather than the meat. Do not put butter in early, it will be black long before the chop is done. And open a window on the opposite side of the room to the extractor so there is actually a cross draught, which does more than the extractor does.
First time I reverse seared I got a grey chop with no crust at all, because I took it straight from a humid oven into the pan with a wet surface and it steamed. Now I dry brine, salt them and leave them uncovered on a rack in the fridge for at least 12 hours, and the difference in the crust is not subtle. If you only change one thing, change that.
Dry brine overnight uncovered, 110C oven to 57C internal, rest, 90 seconds a side in a hot dry pan. Thermometer or you are guessing.
@braise_brenda · 2w ago · 2 replies
I will be mildly contrary: at 4cm a forward sear is perfectly good and reverse searing a weeknight chop is a lot of ceremony. Your smoke problem is not the order, it is that you are almost certainly using a fat with too low a smoke point and probably too much of it. Thin film of a neutral high smoke point oil, pan hot but not glowing, and butter only in the last minute off the direct heat. I have cooked chops this way on a hob with no extraction for years without setting anything off.
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@circadian_cass · 2w ago
Fat choice is a fair point and probably half the smoke. I would still argue the reverse gives more consistent interiors at this thickness, which was the other half of the question.
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