Servings: 2 Prep: 7 mins Cook: 8 min Total: 15 mins
Here’s a really fun one! It’s a big tender pounded out chunk of pork, breaded and fried. The idea is to have such a substantially wide Pork Milanese that it covers the entire bottom of the plate. This is then topped with a glorious and flavor filled salad!
This is another recipe attached to my quick meals blog post. Each recipe is 15 minutes or less. Here’s my last-minute iPhone shot of the ingredients I used.
This one is a bit funny. It’s one of those times I wished I’d been filming, because I hit a bit of a wall.
See, I’m literally racing the clock while pulling this one together. I’ve never performed this recipe before, so I don’t have it 1000% dialed in. I’m kind of winging it. I don’t KNOW I can do it in under 15 minutes. I just assumed I could. Usually when I cook for the blog, I have people over who help me eat it all. So, with a small crown watching, I shushed everyone and started the timer, setting off a chain reaction of flailing arms, legs and pork parts.
Usually, when I pound out pork, I use pork loin. Fried pounded out pork loin is common because loin doesn’t have much fat and is very easy to overcook, rendering it dry. By pounding it out, it tenderizes it. By breading it and frying it, the breading absorbs and holds some fat, which adds moisture to the cut. However, the key to MY thought process was… “Hey, I’ve got some leftover pork butt. I could pound the dickens out of it, to tenderize. It’ll make for a lovely little cutlet!”
My logic was sound, but I didn’t realize how much tougher pork butt (the pigs shoulder) is over a pork loin, which runs along the spine and isn’t used for as much work. Butt, to me, is something to me slow cooked and softened over time. I’ve simply never tried this!
So, I gathered myself together, I made my breading, I had my salad all set and ready to build… all was moving along swimmingly, but I was eminently aware of the ticking clock. I still had to fry up the pork. So, I cut a nice pork steak from my butt, put it between two pieces of plastic wrap and started to whack at it with the bottom of a pot. It wasn’t entirely unlike whacking at one of those super bouncy balls you can buy from a vending machine at Chuck E Cheese. It was tough and highly resistant to my attack.
A more naturally tender cut of meat will quick give in to the whacking and quickly form to the desired shape. Apparently, it’s much harder to whip a butt into the desired shape. (I hear squats are good for that!)
So, I whacked and whacked, barely making a dent in this tough cut of meat.
Now, to frame the moment… While I’m thinner than I used to be, I’m still a large man. I had people over. I had a ticking clock… and time was running out. I whacked even harder, elevating the spectacle.
Rather than give up, slow down, or stop to think and rationalize, I just started hitting the pork with the EDGE of the bottom of the pot. This helped, but it was still tough as all get out. I whacked and whacked. The plastic wrap started to wrinkle and shrivel and little bits of pork juice started to fling and splutter.
Ohhhh… ticking clock!
I grabbed my biggest and heaviest chef’s knife and started whacking at it with the backside of the blade. This helped a lot and got it moving, but I had to whack in a rapid-fire motion, ratatat-tat! Machine-gun pork pounding!
Once I used the back of my knife, the butt began to give in and relent. The meat FINALLY began to smoosh outward and flatten. I alternated between the back of my blade, the edge of a big soup pot, and my forehead (just kidding!). After a solid 120 seconds of sloppy relentless pounding, I arrived at the thickness and shape I was looking for. I breaded that sucker up, fried it and slapped a salad on it. I came in more than a full minute under my goal of 15 minutes and it was tender, flavorful and delicious.
A mess and a loud dramatic display, but that didn’t stop anyone from devouring it, the moment I turned my back!
The moral of the story? DJ Foodie needs to buy hisself a Mjölnir!
Take Note: This whole story would’ve been simplified had I just cut a 1/2-thick (1.25 cm) slice of pork loin. Pork butt is quite a bit tougher to pound.
Sage Fried Pork Milanese with Artichoke Arugula Salad
Print RateIngredients
- 12 oz boneless pork loin
- 2/3 cup pork rinds (fried skin)
- 1/3 cup almond flour
- 2/3 cup grated or shaved parmesan cheese divided
- 1/4 cup fresh sage
- 4 cup arugula washed and dried
- 1/4 lb cherry tomatoes washed and dried
- 1/2 cup artichoke hearts in oil
- 4 slices cooked bacon
- 1 each lemon
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil divided
- salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place two large nonstick sauté pans on the stove over medium heat. Allow them to preheat.
- Pulverize the pork rinds in a food processor, to make a crumb or powder.
- Add half of the cheese (1/3rd cup [80 mL]) and almond flour to the pork rinds. Process in the processor long enough to have a nice breading. Don’t go too long, or else it’ll start to clump. Pour the mixture into something like a pie pan or a large wide plate.
- Chop the sage and add to the breading mixture, with a little salt and pepper. Stir in to combine. Set aside.
- Place each pork slice between two sheets of plastic wrap. With a mallet, the bottom of a pot, the back of a knife, or your kid’s soccer cleats, pound the pork into thin wide sheets of pork. The pork should have a diameter of about 7 to 8 inches (18 cm).
- Remove the top sheet of plastic and season the pork with a little salt and pepper. Dredge the pork in the breading to get a nice coating. Let it sit in there for a minute. The salt will pull some of the moisture from the pork and soak into the breading, acting a bit like glue.
- While the pork sits in the breading, put 2 tbsp (30 mL) of olive oil in the base of each pan. Swirl it around.
- Quickly and gently move the pork from the breading pan to the saute pan. Lay the pork in the pan down and away from yourself, in case there is any hot fat splashes, it splashes AWAY from you. Let the pork cook and get a nice brown crust on one side.
- While the pork cooks, put the arugula in a large salad bowl.
- Half or quarter your cherry tomatoes. Add to the arugula.
- Cut each piece of artichoke into half. Add to the arugula.
- Crumble the bacon into the arugula.
- Around this time, it’s good to flip the pork over, to cook the other side.
- While the other side of the pork cooks, with a cheese grater, grate a small amount of the yellow zest off the outside of the lemon. You want about 1/2 tsp. Juice the lemon (you want about 2 tbsp [30 mL]). Add the zest and lemon juice to the arugula.
- Add the remaining half of the grated cheese, along with the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil to the arugula. Add a little salt and pepper.
- Once the pork is cooked, place each Milanese into the center of a large plate.
- Toss the salad in the bowl. Taste and adjust seasoning.
- Place half of each salad on top of each salad. Serve and enjoy!
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* Learn More: More about this recipe and nutrition …
Looks like a winner and can’t wait to taste it! I especially like that the recipe makes only two servings (my freezer is already full of leftovers!)
Yep, this is a smaller quick recipe … somewhat uncharacteristic of me, but … definitely worth the 14 minutes it took to make. Let me know what you think!
(a good freezer IS full of leftovers. Well done! 😉 )
The calorie count is seems really high. Can you help me understand?
Hi Tina. I suppose this might fall under the camp of “it’s a DJ sized portion”. I’m a strong 200 lb. man and tend to make fairly large portions. This is a smaller recipe, in that it’s not for 6 or 10 people, like some recipes, but it’s still a generous portion. Beyond that, it’s a calorie dense piece of meat, dredge in high-fat/calorie dense almond flour and cheese, then fried in oil, served with a salad coated in oil. “Keto” is a high fat diet. Fat has more than twice the calorie density than protein or carbohydrates. So, a little goes a long ways. Beyond that, it’s not a diet where “calorie counting” is very common. As a result, I personally tend to overlook that, when writing recipes. Calories do still count, mind you, but people typically eat less because their satiated from their diet, so they crave less … thus, eating less. If you wanted to cut the calories, you could cut the olive oil in half and you’d cut out near 250 calories, per serving, right there. Use a bit less cheese and almond flour, to cut it further. This is why I list all the macros. It helps you see where the calories, fat, etc. are all coming from, allowing you to trim the biggest offenders, to squeeze them into your own goals. Or, cook it as is and enjoy half, saving the other for lunch the next day! I hope this helps! 😀