And now for something…Completely different.

In this month’s issue of Gourmet magazine, something completely different caught my eye. In a section on grilling, they listed a recipe for pork chops. Except these were grilled. And breaded. Grilled, breaded pork chops. I was intrigued. Could you grill breading? That has so much potential! During those hot summer months when the kids are clamoring for some chicken strips and you have to fire up the oven… it never occurred to me to try breading on the grill. This instantly became a must try recipe.

I did make a few changes. The recipe calls for 10 slices of fresh bread, which you make into fresh bread crumbs and then toast in the oven. The whole point of this exercise was to avoid the oven, so I needed an alternative. A can of pre-made crumbs wouldn’t do the trick, I needed some texture- panko was a possibility. Then a bag of Caeser style croutons caught my eye. Ah. The moment of inspiration. I took that bag and dumped it in the food processor, and made crumbs. I added the parmesan cheese and pepper, but left out the salt. I thought the combination of parmesan cheese and pre-seasoned bread crumbs would provide enough salt, and I was correct.

It worked perfectly! I did oil the grill with canola oil, as I was worried about the olive oil burning, and I would do that again. These pork chops were really good! You do need to keep a careful eye on the heat- it needs to be just so to crisp the crumbs without burning them. The flavors were great- and I do attribute that some to the croutons, so I will just use them in the future, I think. All in all, this made a very quick week-night meal. Using the croutons, it took all of 2 minutes to make the crumb mixture, maybe another 5 minutes to properly coat 4 pork chops, plus 10 minutes on the grill. That’s less than 20 minutes. Delicious and quick- and so much future potential. I highly recommend them.