- You know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and here to prove it today is my son, Sam, who is an excellent cook, and you know what, you would be too if you learned how to cook these dishes, these two simple sautees that he has perfected.

First, a favorite from Sam's college years: buttermilk fried pork chops.

So tender and tasty, no wonder he made them all the time.

Then, Sam is joining me to make another sautee that's so good, it's destined to replace the pork chops: sauteed lemon chicken with capers, and on Ask Sara, we'll answer viewers questions about vegetables.

So you're ready to cook?

- Yeah!

- You know, maybe you'll teach me something this time.

- Maybe.

- I'm Sara Moulton, that's all coming up on Sara's Weeknight Meals.

Let's go!

[upbeat piano music] - [Voiceover] Funding provided by: - [Voiceover] Subaru builds vehicles like the versatile Subaru Forester.

With symmetrical all-wheel drive, and plenty of cargo room, a recipe made for whatever the day brings.

Subaru, a proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals.

- [Voiceover] Family-owned and Indiana-grown, Maple Leaf Farms is a proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals, providing a variety of duck products for home kitchens.

Maple Leaf Farm's duck helps inspire culinary adventures everywhere.

Maple Leaf Farms.

- [Voiceover] And thanks to the generous support of [upbeat guitar music] - The inspiration for this recipe comes from southern fried chicken.

However, I'm not making chicken.

I'm making pork.

This is the secret ingredient: buttermilk.

What does the buttermilk do?

It makes it really moist and juicy, and yummy so I am making buttermilk fried pork chops, and it's actually buttermilk soaked fried pork chops and by the way, they aren't fried, but here is our marinade, we're starting with one cup of buttermilk which is the equivalent in fat content of either skim milk or 1%, very low-cal, but it's got that rich, thick texture.

If you can't find buttermilk, which you can increasingly, I'm going to mince some garlic here, just take one cup of milk, combine it with a tablespoon of either vinegar or fresh lemon juice and let it sit for, I don't know, half an hour and it will sort of become, get the properties of buttermilk meaning it will be a good tenderizer.

Dairy is a good tenderizer anyway, but buttermilk has got the double-whammy of having the acid and the milk.

So in goes our garlic, and then we're going to add some hot sauce, a teaspoon.

It can be whatever hot sauce you like, and then a 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

I used to whisk this together, but I get lazier by the second, so instead, I smoosh it up and hope that the salt dissolves.

So while that sort of hangs out, and the salt continues to dissolve, I am going to pound my pork chop.

Now, I got those boneless pork chops, about a 1/2 inch thick and I'm going to pound them so they're much thinner, but in order to cut them in half, you're going to see in a minute, I froze them for about a half an hour.

There seems to be a theme here.

It's just much easier to work with meat when it's cold, and it's even easier to work with it when it's slightly frozen.

I'm going to cut these two chops horizontally, and I'm going to show you how.

Just get down where the meat is.

Don't ever stand up here and go like that.

You can see where that might go.

Just go slowly, keep your hand on top.

Go all the way through, and there you go.

My favorite way of pounding is to add a little bit of water to a resealable bag, you can put a little bit of water on plastic wrap if you prefer to do that, this helps the meat to not shred when you're pounding it.

I'm going to pound the meat to 1/8 of an inch thickness and the rolling pin is my weapon of choice, and now it's going to cook up so quickly and be wonderfully tender, but first we've got to marinate it for a half an hour.

So I'm going to pop it into our marinade bag, and I have some in the fridge that I've already marinated for a half an hour.

So now it's time to cook them.

Quick rinse to my hands and then I'm going to bread my chops.

Bread crumbs: the darling of chefs.

We have here Panko bread crumbs.

We just love them because they're so coarse and so dry and so they're so crispy on the outside.

If you couldn't find Panko bread crumbs, which mostly you can these days, don't sweat it, you could just use some dried bread crumbs.

You could even use Italian bread crumbs.

I'm adding some olive oil.

Now, we're not frying the pork chops, we're sauteeing the pork chops, and we're going to coat it with the bread crumbs.

My son just loves these pork chops, and it's funny because after he was at college for just one semester, he decided he hated the dorm food, so he moved into an apartment with a bunch of friends and he started cooking.

I was amazed!

So I road-tested this recipe on him, and he just went wild for it, so I know that this is going to become part of his weekly repertoire.

[upbeat banjo music] And we'll give these about three minutes a side, or until they're crispy and brown and firm to the touch.

So let me just take a little peek and see how we're doing.

Tip it away, if you're going to turn this one, so that when you flip it over, you don't land it in the fat and have the fat splatter up at you.

Oh boy, doesn't that look good?

Alright, while it finishes off on the second side I'm going to go down and chop some parsley.

Now when you go to chop parsley, I see people laboriously taking off leaf by leaf, I'm like, "ahh, that's too much work."

Did I mention how lazy I am at cooking?

So I just sort of give it a haircut, just shave it down, leave the stems behind.

Don't worry about it and then, whenever you're chopping an herb like this, smoosh it together instead of letting it scatter all over your board in which case you're going to have to chase it, and then you will probably not have to chop it very much because it's so condensed, and actually this doesn't have to be finely chopped anyway, so I'm going to do this once and call it a day.

Alright, that looks good.

My pork is done.

I can tell because it's firm, and it's golden.

So let me just put this on some paper towels to drain for half a second, and I'll sautee up the rest, and then I'll cut my lemons.

[guitar music] - Okay, I'm ready to plate.

A wonderful backdrop vegetable are sauteed apples and cabbage.

I'll just put these extras on here.

So you have to do it in batches as I mentioned and I'm just going to add to my first batch.

We're going to top each one with some of my chopped parsley and a lemon and then everybody can serve themselves and take a little lemon wedge with them to squeeze on top.

Very Italian to do it with the lemon wedge.

And another side of some sweet potato puree or butternut squash puree, those wonderful orange winter squashes, there you go!

Okay, these buttermilk pork chops will definitely become regulars on your weekly lineup and if my son can make them, so can you.

[upbeat guitar music] - So I have a good question from my website, saramoulton.com, from some viewers.

To ask that question, I have Dan and Sophie from Nashville, Tennessee.

- Hello there, Sara.

- Hi!

So Nashville, Tennessee, yikes!

What are you both doing there?

- I'm in the music business, imagine that.

- Wow!

- So I had a career for many, many years there, and now I teach music publishing at Belmont University.

- Very cool, very cool, and Sophie?

- Well, I'm studying animation and I want to be a video game designer and animator when I'm older.

- Well, geez, you will have a job.

Okay, so you two have a question, we'll start with you, Dan.

- Well Sara, here, we have a lot of great farmers' markets in the Summer just everything blooms in Tennessee, it's a great climate to grow fresh vegetables in, and so when you buy fresh vegetables, you want to use them that day, I think that's kind of the point, right?

But I don't want to under-buy, so I tend to have leftover vegetables even if I'm just grilling hamburgers and I want to have tomato and lettuce, I end up with a few left over.

So, what's the best way to keep them fresh for further consumption?

- For a little while longer so we don't have to waste them?

- Yeah.

- Okay, well we covered this.

I've got a little tape I'm going to show you, and I hope it will mostly answer those questions so let's take a look at it.

The whole idea of shopping locally is to use the food by cooking it that day, but what if you have some left over?

Don't let it go to waste.

Where your eggs should go is in the back of the fridge, it's much cooler.

Next, tomatoes.

Whatever you do, do not ever put a tomato in the refrigerator, kills it, kills the texture, kills the flavor, kills everything.

Just leave them on the counter, they'll be fine, and then, lettuce, what do you do with lettuce?

Don't wash it until you're ready to use it, because that will make it too wet, but wrap it in a damp paper towel.

This will help to preserve the moisture that's in there and keep it trapped, and then put it in a resealable bag.

There's a special place for lettuce in the fridge, it's called the crisper.

You can even adjust the temperature.

Okay!

So what do you think?

Was that helpful?

- You know what, I have always put tomatoes in the refrigerator.

- Oh, dear!

- So this has been great, thank you very much, that's a great tip.

- I'm so glad, I'm so glad.

Do you have any other questions now we're talking.

- Well, yeah, mushrooms.

i mean, if I understand right, mushrooms are fungi.

- Yes, this is correct.

- Fungus.

- Yes.

- What is up with that?

- I know, well let's not discuss that.

- [laughter] Okay.

- I don't know, there's lots of things we eat in nature that are interesting like caviar, capers, and you don't really understand how we got there, but we know they're good for us, they're fine.

- Well yeah, I love them and I love shiitake mushrooms, I love, what are the big ones you can make a whole sandwich out of?

- Portabellos.

- Portabello, I love Portobello mushrooms.

- Yeah.

- So, if I'm bringing some mushrooms home, if I wash them, am I washing away some kind of great element that fresh mushrooms have?

How do you prepare mushrooms?

- Okay, well you really do need to wash them.

Here is a little clip for you to look at that will tell you what to do.

- Great!

- So the way I was taught to clean a mushroom in cooking school was to take them one by one, individually, and wipe them with a damp paper towel.

Well, that is fine if you have four, but what if you have 12 or 16 or a 5lb box of mushrooms?

I am not doing that, it takes way too long.

Fortunately, somewhere in there, I went and worked in a one star restaurant in France.

They taught me a different way to wash mushrooms.

I'm going to fill up a bowl with water.

I'm going to get some dry paper towels.

Okay, so you fill up your bowl with water, and then you put them in, and then you go like this womp, womp, womp.

womp, womp, and then you get them out, you just rub them a bit to get that extra dirt off, and pat them dry.

Okay, done!

That was easy, right?

- I liked your little swooshy, swooshy, swoosh what was that little sound you make?

- Yeah, womp, womp, womp.

- Womp, womp, yeah!

- I don't know where that came from.

- So now, I can be a mushroom womper.

- Yeah, I think that's in your future.

Okay, well is that it?

Are we all solved with questions?

- Actually, I've got a question.

We grill a lot in the summer, and I was wondering if you had any tips on how to help my dad prepare vegetables on the grill.

- Grilled vegetables, okay.

Well, first of all you try to pick vegetables that are longer so they don't fall through the slats, so if you're doing- - [Dan] Ahh, that!

- I know, so if you're doing zucchini you cut it crosswise as opposed to not in little rounds, and season them well before you out them on the grill.

Don't move them until they're ready to be moved, which means that they've seared and caramelized a little bit, but very important: many people tell you to season the grill, season the vegetables meaning oil on the vegetables, not on the grill.

It's been great talking to you guys.

Thank you so much for all these questions.

These are good questions.

- Thank you.

- Thank you Sara, and goodbye from Tennessee.

- Okay, Nashville, bye bye.

[guitar music] - Sautee is the name of the game today and we're making a wonderful lemon chicken dish and I happen to be cooking with one of my favorite sous chefs, and my best testers, my son, Sam.

Are you up for this?

- Yes, Mom very up for this.

- Well, we're making lemon chicken and we have to start by pounding the meat so let's do that first and let me just say one tip that he already knows, is when you're pounding chicken, you need to put a little water on the plastic so that the chicken doesn't rip.

Otherwise it ends up looking like lace.

- Yes.

- Okay, ready?

One, two, three.

- Pound away!

[pounding] - Alright, before we get too lacy.

- Before it's- - You need a little more in there.

- Alright, yes Ma.

- Just in the middle.

Wow, that's big.

Okay!

So the reason that we want to pound it, okay let's put away the weapons- - Put away the weapons.

- so, let's cut, you want to cut each of these in half this way and then we'll part them and hose down.

- Sounds good.

- Okay.

Whoops!

We can lose the top piece, yeah.

The reason we're pounding them is because then they take a lot less time to cook and what do we like most in the house, we like the meat or do we like the sauce?

- Sauce.

- Yeah, so the thinner the meat the more sauce you get on each piece, correct?

- Yes, Ma, more surface area.

- [Sara] That's good enough.

- [Sam] Oh, it's good enough?

- Did I do that?

- You beat it until it ripped in half, Ma.

- I did, I did, okay.

So, that's the chicken.

We're going to move onto the capers, and so I'm clean, you're all dirty.

You can hose down.

- Yes, Ma.

- But cut that in half first.

- Hose down or cut things, Ma?

Come on.

- I know, I know, I'm being bossy as usual.

So, there's capers, there the pickled bud of a Mediterranean flower.

- Wow, fancy!

- Well, sort of fancy.

I want to know who was the first person who walked past that bud and said, "Gee, I'm going to pickle that."

You know, you can't eat them raw.

I don't know why they thought of that, but any rate, we need about 2 tablespoons.

If you put them in a hot pan, they sort of explode because they're wet.

Now that would not be much fun, now would it?

- No.

- So I'm going to pat this dry.

You want to put some oil in there, a couple tablespoons.

- [Sam] Okay.

- And we're going to put this in a cold pan.

We dry them so they don't pop, and we start them in a cold pan so we don't wear them.

So we're going to start with those guys.

- [Sam] So now can I turn on the heat?

- Yes, you can, it's the left one right here.

- Okay.

- Okay, medium heat.

- [Sam] Alright.

- And you can keep an eye on them and we'll stir them and I'm going to season the chicken, and while that's happening, I'm going to tell you that when I started on TV, many, many years ago, of course when I was just twelve, well that's not possible because Sammy was five, but any rate, Sammy was on the show a lot, what do you remember?

- Yeah, I remember when I thought I was a comedian and thought I was quite funny, and I remember trying to get a joke across.

I was obsessed with the meatball crossing the street joke, of course a family favorite.

- You made it up!

- Psh, yeah i did because- - You made it up, are you kidding?

- Well, yeah- - You popped it on me, that was the first.

Do you remember how it went?

- It was something like, why did the meatball try and cross the road?

To get to the field of spaghetti?

- You're not supposed to give the punchline that quickly.

- Oh!

- To get to the field of spaghetti!

- Okay, I'm sorry.

- But, anyway what happened was, so Sammy said, you know he's down here, he's like, "Mom, I want to tell a joke," and my producer who's in my ear in the control room, is like, "Noo!"

and the good news about live TV, it was live TV, is you can do anything you want.

So I said, "Go ahead, Sam!

What do you want to tell me?"

and any rate, then he told his very silly joke and it was a lot of fun, right?

- Oh, it was a great time, that was a lot of fun.

The other instance that I remember was when you had the New York Giants on and I was too young to know how cool they were and all this stuff.

- I think those guys had to do the show sitting down with me.

- I mean, yeah, they would have to have a step stool for you, Mom, or something.

- Alright, so those are going to get a little bit crispy and what you're going to do is actually put them right back on this dish- - Okay.

- with the slotted spoon, but wait until they look a little crispy, and meanwhile, I'm going to flour the chicken.

So this is instantized flour which is gravy flour, but it also really gives a nice crust on the outside of the chicken.

[upbeat guitar music] - And we're just browning these on both sides.

- Yeah.

- And they only take a few minutes, and I'm going to go get the lemon and the shallots.

- Looks great!

- Yeah, so you keep an eyeball on this.

- Well you taught me not to touch them so they get nice and brown, so I'm going to give them a second, give them some air time.

- Right, so let me get our lemon and shallot and you can slice it very thin, okay?

And I'm going to see how we're doing.

Yeah, that looks good.

We don't want too much color on this.

- [Sam] True, that looks great, yeah.

- [Sara] That looks yummy.

- [ Sam] I just want it a little more brown, get it tan not burnt.

- Okay, and a little nubbit for you.

- Yes, the tasting nubbit.

- Yeah, the tasting one.

Okay, so now I'm going to chop up some shallot.

Quickly, go grab a plate of sugar, I need about two tablespoons.

- Okay, Ma.

- And I'm just going to get this shallot done.

Now, the reason we're using shallot, I love shallots, it's very French, again, it's because they're really sweet, and they give a great depth of flavor, they get brown in the sauce.

I think those guys can come out.

- Yes, can I have the tongs please?

- Yes.

[soft jazz music] - Okay, so here we go.

- There we go.

- So this is going to go in.

There we go.

- And at this part is where I want to kind of scrape up all the brown stuff.

- Yeah, this will be very quick, and you know what, then we're going to just dump the shallots in with the capers.

- [Sam] Okay.

- [Sara] So those are beautifully browned.

- [Sam] Yeah, quick.

- This is all going to come together afterward so we're going to have the salty capers and the acidic lemons, and the wonderful sauce from the chicken.

- Nice.

- It's sort of a like a take on piccata, have you ever had...

I don't use fancy names at home.

- No you do not.

- Back on with more- - Oil.

- A little more oil about a tablespoon.

- Okay.

- And then we can do this together because I want it to get it on.

- Get on.

- Now if I was going to be really fancy, I would remove the seeds, but I'm going to be lazy instead.

Coat it well though.

Now this just has to reduce and it caramelizes, so do you remember anything else about the Food Network?

- I remember the cookie making show where we made the gingerbread cookies, I think they were, we got to design them, and that was a lot of fun, I was able to get creative and artsy even though I was not.

- Do you remember what you did?

- I think I made, probably, James Bond or something like that.

I was quite obsessed with Mr.

Bond when I was younger.

- I remember one Halloween, he was "James Blonde."

- Thanks, Ma.

That's always good.

Let the world know.

- Okay, so, see what we're doing we're getting this nice color on here.

- Wow, that looks great.

- Yeah, as a matter of fact, I'm going to get it off.

- Yeah.

- Because it's smoking.

Any time things start smoking that much, we want this kind of color on the lemons, but we don't want a burnt pan.

- No.

- Okay, I'm just going to get this guy over.

- Running away from you, Ma.

- And let me get my spatula.

We're just about ready to finish this.

- Yeah, that looks great.

- Now here's the great thing about sautees, like this kind of dish or the pork dish we did a minute ago, is that they take no time at all.

- Yes, Ma.

- Okay, so I'm just going to put them on top of the chicken.

- Yeah, that looks good.

Here I'll help you.

- Isn't that pretty?

And this also gets sort of an A+ in visuals, I'd say.

- Definitely does.

- Whatever you do, don't touch that because it's caramel.

Alright, okay, watch out, here goes.

Stand back.

- Wepa!

- Wepa!

Okay.

- There you go, and I'll use this to get the rest of the little brown bits up.

- Yes, do that please.

Now when you make this recipe, you should follow the recipe where you do the lemons first and then the shallots, but as we say, there's very little you can't fix when you're cooking.

- Exactly.

- So you never apologize, never explain.

We're going to bring this up to a boil.

- Is that a Juliaism or your mom?

- That's a Juliaism, "never apologize, never explain."

- There we go, that sounds more like her.

- So if it's a soufle and it falls, you just say it's a pudding cake.

- It's all about the phrasing of it all.

- It's the phrasing, it's the positioning, right, because everybody is so happy you cooked and they didn't.

Okay I think we can put everything in.

Gently slide in the chicken, and I'll put in the shallots.

Spread it around, you know the routine.

- Get all the deliciousness on.

- Yeah, and you keep turning it.

I'm going to get some butter.

So let's put a few tablespoons in.

- Yeah, I'll give you some room to plop them in.

- Just let it, this looks pretty darn good, doesn't it?

- Yeah, I'm getting quite hungry.

- We're just letting the chicken finish cooking a little bit in the sauce, basically it was done to begin with, right Sammy?

- Yeah.

- Okay, so let's set ourselves up.

Are you hungry?

- So hungry, and we need the broccoli and the quinoa too, right?

- Yes.

- Alright.

Thank you, Ma.

- Let's see.

- There we go.

- Yum, yum.

We're going to go sit outside.

- Sounds good.

- A little more sauce, right?

It's all about the sauce.

- All about the sauce.

- We eat the lemons too, isn't that fun?

- Yeah, it's great.

- Alright, so I'm just going to set up another plate and I'll meet you outside.

- Sounds good, Ma.

- Alright.

[mellow guitar music] - Alright, another great meal cooked by the Sammy/Mommy team.

- Squad.

- Thank you so much, so I'm interested if this beats your pork dish, you have to tell me and you have to take a little bite of the lemon too.

- Of course.

- And the caper, I know normally you're not a big fan of capers.

- Hey, anything you make, you know I'm going to have a taste.

- Alright, boy, that's awfully good if I do say so myself.

Wow!

Thank you so much for joining me today, and Sammy, thank you for cooking with me.

I hope you try these quick, simple sautees at home.

They're just the best.

I'm Sara Moulton, thanks for joining me.

I'll see you next time for some more of Sara's Weeknight Meals.

What do you think?

- Winning!

I like the lemon, I like the capers.

- Not too chewy.

- And I know this is a huge surprise, I love the sauce.

- We could even have more, right?

We should make double sauce.

- The more sauce, the better sauce.

- More sauce.

I think always more sauce.

So do you remember the recipe that you invented on the Food Network?

- No, what was it?

- Well, remember you had this brilliant idea for chocolate pizza?

- I remember I had an idea for pizza with chocolate chips on it, I didn't have an idea for- - For chocolate pizza, well, at any rate, I thought that was right up there with the meatball joke.

I thought, "Oh, my son at 5, he's so smart!

Wow!"

- [Voiceover] Sara's Weeknight Meals continues online.

For recipes, helpful tips, messages and lots more, visit us on the web at saramoulton.com/weeknightmeals and go to our YouTube channel: Sara's Weeknight Meals TV.

Funding provided by: - [Voiceover] Subaru builds vehicles like the versatile Subaru Forester.

With symmetrical all-wheel drive, and plenty of cargo room, a recipe made for whatever the day brings.

Subaru, a proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals.

- [Voiceover] Family-owned and Indiana-grown, Maple Leaf Farms is a proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals, providing a variety of duck products for home kitchens.

Maple Leaf Farm's duck helps inspire culinary adventures everywhere.

Maple Leaf Farms.

- [Voiceover] And thanks to the generous support of [soft paino] [synthesizer]