Between 120 and 130☏ you're at medium-rare.Some folks like the very center of their chops to be rare. The meat is starting to firm up a bit, but is still translucent and deep pink or red. Between 110 and 120☏ you're in rare territory.It'll be translucent in color, like raw meat, and have a soft, unpleasant texture. Below 110☏ your pork chop is still very close to raw.They contain many different muscle groups, some of which can be quite tough. Sirloin chops: come from the end closest to the rump.Because tenderloin and loin cook so differently, it's very difficult to cook a center-cut chop evenly without over- or under-cooking one side or the other. Center-cut chops: The porcine equivalent of a T-bone steak, with a large eye of meat on one side of the bone, and a smaller eye of tenderloin on the other side.Depending on which end of the rib section the chops are cut from, they can have either a ton of fat and connective tissue around them (when cut from the blade end), or very little (when cut from the sirloin end). Rib chops are easily identified by their large eye of tender meat. Rib chops: Cut from behind the shoulder.They're packed with flavor, but can have some tough or stringy bits. These chops tend to have the darkest meat, and plenty of surrounding fat and connective tissue.
Blade chops: Cut from the shoulder-end of the loin.
