Chip Chop and Apple Sau......I Mean Corn on the Cob

I am sitting here smoking one of the cigars that I got on my recent trip to Nicaragua thinking about how I want to approach writing the first guest blog of Janelle's trip through the Alton Brown cookbook.  Do I want to make it funny, because after all the first thing that I make is made out of pork chops and potato chips.  Maybe a flare for the dramatic, just think about the movie Cocktail except with a taller Tom Cruise.  Or do I do Alton Brown style and teach about the origin of the potato chips.  Well I guess you will have to read to find out how I write this first ever guest blog.

So the recipe called for all the ingredients any single man would have in his house or in this case a wife that wants to interest her husband in cooking.  I needed one bag of salt and vinegar chips less the 8 handfuls that I ate, 2 big ribbed pork chops, an egg (I chose a chicken egg but alligator eggs would suffice), some vegetable oil, and seasoned flour, oh yes you will learn what that is.

So I started by warming up the oil on one of those really heavy and expensive pans that Janelle loves to get for holidays, birthdays, Mother's Day, and of course Flag Day.  Warming up the oil is easy but lifting that pan was not so I warmed up with some light stretching and did some reps with the pan (3 sets of 10 with each arm).  

Now it is time to crush the chips.  As I thought about using the whole bag I thought that I might like some of those chips for my lunch the next day, so I crushed half the bag.  Now did you know the story of potato chips.  Well you are about to......according to a traditional story, the original potato chip recipe was created in Saratoga Springs, New York on August 24, 1853. Agitated by a patron repeatedly sending his fried potatoes back because they were too thick, soggy and bland, resort hotel chef, George Crum, decided to slice the potatoes as thin as possible, frying them until crisp and seasoning them with extra salt. Contrary to Crum's expectation, the patron (sometimes identified as Cornelius Vanderbilt) loved the new chips and they soon became a regular item on the lodge's menu under the name "Saratoga Chips".  I digress, so I put the crushed chips in pie dish thing.  

In another bowl I whip the egg into submission.  By submission I mean a lot.  There is no fun in doing that so lets skip that part.  Now you soak the pork chops in the egg so that the seasoned flour will stick to it.  Oh yeah, the seasoned flour.  Ok quick show of hands who knows what seasoned flour is.  I want all of you that raised your hands to take a good honest look at yourself via the little box that comes up on Skype and say do I truly know what it is or have I heard of it before.  Now that all hands are down let's continue.  

Now besides not having a spotter to help put the pan on the stove this was my first true obstacle. I could not call Janelle, because first she would not have raised her hand to begin with because it's seasoned flour and as we have established no one knows what that is and secondly, she was working which is why I am guest cooking and blogging to begin with.  So, because we live in a wonderful age of technology the iPhone now makes an appearance.  In the subject line of Google I write "Chicago Cubs Score" (I am guest cooking but I am not dead).  After seeing another tragic loss I typed in "seasoned flour".  Easy enough, right.  Of course not.  There is seven million ways to make seasoned flour.  But here is the best one I found: 2 cups of flour, 2 tablespoons of salt, tablespoon of celery salt (which I think sounds weird), tablespoon of pepper, 2 tablespoons of dry mustard, 4 tablespoons of paprika, 2 tablespoons of garlic powder, 1 teaspoon of ginger, then a half teaspoon of thyme, sweet basil, and oregano.  Mix it all in a bowl and after a quick taste test, it tasted like flour but with seasoned in it.  
  
My goodness can we start cooking because the oil is getting hot.  So we take the pork chop into the whipped into submission egg, then pad it with the seasoned flour and then crunch it in what now might be a third of a bag of crushed salt and vinegar chips (don't judge me I get hungry as I cook).  Now the trick to putting something into hot oil is to not let it jump up and burn you.  Well I am an old dog and do not know these new tricks.  I burned the crap out of myself.  But then you have to flip it after a minute.  That's right you have to burn the crap out of yourself again.  But here is the best part.  There are two pork chops.  Yep I burned myself times two.
Now we put these beautiful pieces of meat on a baking dish and put it in the oven on 350 until the  core temperature is 145 degrees, which is about 29 minutes in.  Throw a few dehusked corn on the cobs in a pot and now we are having fun.  I of course dehusked them myself there is no frozen corn on this masterpiece.  
Well, the final product was enjoyed by the whole family.  The whole family does include our dog that ate most of my kids pork chops as they would only eat the corn on the cob.  My wife thought it was a little burnt tasting but edible.  As for me, I knew I would have to write about the food and I thought it was amazing.  I also got to relive the experience for days and not because there was leftovers.  Oh no, the pork chops were all eaten as was the corn.  But when I ate my normal peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich for lunch the next two days at work I got to enjoy them with some leftover salt and vinegar potato chips.  Thanks honey, this was fun and hopefully people enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy reading yours.  Who is the next guest star,the challenge has been given?