Thursday, April 23, 2009

Pork Chop Talk

Pork Chops are delicious we can all agree with that statement but a question was prosed by my wife that the time to thaw a pork chop should be less than 10 hours, at room temp. Now I believe I have eaten pork chops that were good and thawed with little to no side effect. Nicole on the other side is not so sure, none the less my pork chops that were sealed in a plastic bag but at room temp for maybe 12 hours are now in the garbage and a frozen pizza is on the pizzazz. Side note, the pizzazz actually works and is a great invention. But help Nicole out and comment to her that the chops would have been fine, I would've even seasoned the salmonella out of them. Help us solve the pork chop dilemma.

3 comments:

Jami said...

Interesting topic. You could do a radio show called pork chop talk and I'm sure you'd have lot of fans!! I am not sure if I'm the expert on pork chops or thawing processes. I have a bit of a paranoia about letting anything thaw without refrigeration for more than an hour or so. So I usually just thaw in the fridge and play the waiting game. So unfortunately I must side with the "12 hours is too long to thaw pork chops and then eat them" opinion! Your health thanks you for Nicole's wise advice!

Unknown said...

I have to agree with D. Jans here. I've eaten far worse than 12hr thawed chops and I am still alive with a minimal amount of parasites (as far as I know). I am a firm believer in an all day thaw at room temp. The cooking process should take care of any problems encountered during the actual thawing process.

I remember when I stayed at Doug's once his dad was going to grill hamburgers and he planned for me to eat like 4 of them. I could see if it was Ian or something, but damn, was I that fat at the time?

GP5 said...

Keep them in a plastic ziploc bag and put them in a sink with water. You might have to change the water a few times but it speeds up the thawing process. I guess it depends on how thick these chops were too!

12 hours is definately too long Doug :)

http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/meat_quality/thawing.html

After reading this article, I have to admit I definately used hot water to thaw because it is much faster. To be honest, healthy adults can handle it most of the time, but I wouldn't risk it on kids, pregnant women, immunocompromised and elderly people!