Spicy panko encrusted pork chops... courtesy of Mr. Rookie Chef!

This is my husband, Drew:

This is a photo I took of him outside at a wedding we recently attended. Pretty cute, right? Yeah, I think so too. (no beard/scruff! I'm undecided.... thoughts?). He's also really sweet and often offers to make me dinner. This time he was SO PROUD of his creation that he asked if he could blog about it. How can you say no to that?! So from here out, these are his words... and his recipe. I have only added pictures.

But really, this was so tasty. He did a great job!

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Hello and thanks so much, it is very flattering that anyone would want to read about a meal I made. If you are a regular reader you will know that every so often I will attempt to match my lovely wife's prowess in the kitchen by making some spectacular dinner. I usually aim too high and try to make something really grand but this time I kept in simple. Pork chops. Spicy, panko encrusted pork chops to be exact.

I started with the following ingredients:

2 Center cut IOWA pork chops
1 package of panko bread crumbs
Ground Thyme
Black Pepper
Salt
Lawry's Seasoning salt
Cilantro
Egg wash

I started my endeavor off by pre-heating the oven to 35o degrees and making the egg wash.

In a bowl I poured out a 3/4 cup of panko bread crumbs, I then mixed it with the following:

1 tbsp Black pepper
1 tbsp Ground Thyme
2 teaspoons Salt
2 teaspoons Cilantro
2 teaspoons Lawry's

I then mixed thoroughly and voila, I have my breading. Make sure to go heavy on the thyme and pepper to ensure that your chops are extra spicy.

However, prior to breading the chops I pre-seasoned them as well by thoroughly rubbing them with thyme and black pepper.

Now I'm almost ready to fry, when searing the outside of any meat it is very important to make sure to get your sauté pan as hot as possible. So I then filled a frying pan about 1/4 inch with vegetable oil and set it on high to get the pan as hot as possible and to just as importantly to get the oil as hot as I possible could.

Now back to the pork chops, once seasoned I dipped them in the egg wash and then right into the breading mix and made sure they were thoroughly covered with the breading mix.

Once breaded they went right into the frying pan FOR SEARING ONLY. The goal in this situation is not to cook them entirely. I wanted them to have the feeling of being pan-fried without the greasy finish, and on top of that I wanted to finish them in the oven so that the entire chop would be cooked throughout as I know my wife is very skittish about any sort of possibility of meat or poultry being undercooked.

I seared the chops until the each side was golden brown (about 3-4 minutes on each side). Once out they then went directly on to a cookie sheet to be finished off in the oven.

Pork cooks rather fast compared to beef or chicken and while it still burns at about the same rate, it dries out much faster than its other meat counter parts. So we only want to bake the chops for about 7-9 minutes, not too mention they do cook some during the searing process.

Before you remove the chops from the oven, take a plate and place about 4 paper towels over it, and take 4 more paper towels and set them aside. Once you remove the chops from the oven transfer them directly to the plate on top of the paper towels. Then use the other 4 set aside and gently pat down the chops to soak up some the grease. We are wanting to get the primary flavors of the dish from the seasoning and do not want the fatty/grease taste to overwhelm them.

Once I soaked the grease out of the chops I presented them to my gorgeous wife who was anxiously awaiting the completion of my dinner (and taking pictures). She then bit in and I knew I had a hit. She actually liked them and the meat was cooked to her VERY HIGH standards! It was very enjoyable to see that I had impressed the Rookie Chef...errr my lovely wife Molly Jean!