Porterhouse Pork Chop

Every serious beef eater knows the porterhouse — the king of the steakhouse, two muscles on one bone, the loin on one side of the T and the tenderloin on the other. The pork porterhouse is exactly the same architecture, cut from exactly the same position on the animal, and it cooks exactly the same way. If you have ever cooked a beef porterhouse, you already know what to do with this.

What you get on the plate is the best of two different things in a single chop. The loin side is firm, meaty, and deeply flavored — the muscle that runs the length of the back and produces the classic pork chop most people know. The tenderloin side is something else entirely — the most tender muscle on the animal, fine-grained and almost buttery, the cut we sell separately at the top of our price ladder. Here they share a bone, and the bone ties them together during cooking in a way that neither achieves alone.

At 1.5 inches thick, treat it like a steak. Season generously with salt the night before if you can. Sear it hard on both sides in a screaming hot cast iron with lard or tallow until deeply crusted, then finish in a 375°F oven to 135°F internal and rest it a full five minutes before cutting. The grill works equally well — sear over direct heat, finish indirect. When you cut it, work around the bone and serve both muscles together. The contrast between the two sides of that chop is the point.

The tenderloin side of this chop is the same muscle we sell whole — our pork tenderloin is there for the nights when you want that cut in its full form. Our T-bone pork chop is the same two-muscle structure with a smaller tenderloin section, at a lower price point, for the nights when the occasion doesn't quite call for this one.