Indiana Breaded Tenderloin

Back in Goat Country, there’s a little restaurant called the Magic Wand  that has one of Indiana’s rarest delicacies: the breaded tenderloin sandwich, with the pork spilling over the sides of the sandwich. I had always wanted to make one and this past week I pressed Goat Mom to share her recipe.

The first step is to take a boneless pork chop, and cut off the fat and get ready to pound.

Look how that’s about 3/4 of an inch thick and maybe 2 inches by 4 inches. We’re about to completely transform the shape: pound, pound, pound, pound, pound, pound.

Pount, pound, pound. Now it’s about 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch thick and it’s probably about 7 inches by 7 inches. When I got to the end of the recipe I made a startling discovery. This needed to be pounded even flatter. Next time.

For the breading you’ll need about a half package of crackers. These are Whole Foods brand, I think, but Town House or whatever would work fine. Crush them up nice and fine.

Here’s my little breading station. Two smashed tenderloins, a plate of flour, a plate of egg, a plate of smashed crackers, a skillet on medium heat and a tin-foil lined cookie sheet, and an oven pre-heated to 400.

There’s probably about a tablespoon of oil on the skillet, maybe a little more.

It only took about 3 minutes on each side to get to this beautiful golden brown. This soaked up a lot of the oil, so I added another tablespoon before throwing the second chop on the skillet. It’s okay to undercook a little bit on the skillet because now it’s going in the oven for 15-20 minutes to finish.

The time in the oven actually puffs them up just a little bit which is when I realized that they actually came out a little too thick. Still delicious.

Ingredients

• Two boneless pork loin chops
• 1/2 cup of flour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 roll of crackers
• 2 tablespoons of oil
• Bread and any fixings: lettuce, tomato and onion are all acceptable

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400.
2. Pound boneless pork chops until their less than 1/4 inch thick.
3. Pound, pound, pound some more. Thinner.
4. Set up breading stations of flour (you can add a bit of salt here, if you’d like), well-beaten eggs, and fine ground crackers. Get a tin-foil lined cookie sheet ready.
5. Heat vegetable oil on medium heat.
6. Coat pork chop in flour, then eggs, then crackers and then fry for about 3 minutes on each side until golden brown. Transfer to cookie sheet.
7. Add a little extra oil to the skillet and repeat with second pork chop.
8. Place cookie sheet in oven for 15-20 minutes to finish off.
9. Fix up your sandwiches and enjoy!

• ← BLT Salad with Red Pepper Mayonnaise and Homemade Croutons
• Goats can develop their own accents →