Recipes / Meat
Cape crumbed chops on the gridiron
A heritage recipe from 1908: loin chops beaten thin, dipped in fat and seasoned crumbs, and browned in a hinged grid over wood coals.
- Prep
- 20 min
- On the fire
- 12 min
- Serves
- 4
- Done at
- 145°F (63°C)
Ingredients
Method
Cooking on gas?
- Preheat with the burners on high and the lid closed for 10 minutes, then turn them down to medium so the lid thermometer settles at 175 to 200°C (350 to 400°F). Brush the grates clean and oil them.
- Cook with the lid open and use the recipe times as a guide.
- Keep one burner off or on low as a cooler zone. If fat flares up, move the food there. Never use water on a gas grill flare-up.
- For a smoky taste, put a handful of wood chips in a smoker box, or a foil parcel pierced with a few holes, over a lit burner while the grill preheats.
- Lay the chops between two sheets of baking paper and beat them with a meat mallet or rolling pin until about 1.5 cm (5/8 inch) thick.
- Mix the breadcrumbs with the salt and pepper on a plate.
- Dip each chop in the melted butter, let the excess drip off, then press it into the crumbs on both sides.
- Lay the chops in a hinged grid and let them sit for 10 minutes so the coating sets.
- Braai over medium wood coals for 5 to 6 minutes a side, turning the grid every 2 minutes, until the crumbs are deep brown.
- Lift the grid higher or move it to the edge of the fire if the crumbs darken before the meat is done.
Done when: the crust is an even deep brown and a thermometer in the thickest part, away from the bone, reads 63°C (145°F) after a 3-minute rest.
Tips
- Hilda Duckitt adds that pork chops are very good done the same way. Cook them to 63°C (145°F) and rest them for 3 minutes.
- Hot coals burn the crumbs before the meat cooks. Medium coals, where you can hold your hand at grid height for 5 seconds, are right.
- Make your own crumbs by drying stale bread in a low oven and blitzing it, as the original recipe suggests.
Hildagonda Duckitt called these chops “a favourite Cape dish” and wrote of carbonaatjies steaming hot from the gridiron on wood coals. Her method beats the chops, coats them in fat and dried crumbs, and broils them over a quick fire. We kept the crumb and moved it to a hinged grid. For a plainer chop, see the Karoo-style lamb chops.
Source
Adapted from Hilda's "Where is it?" of Recipes by Hildagonda J. Duckitt (1908), public domain.