Peter Lorre's Pork Chops and Scalloped Potatoes

3 days ago
3 min read

We spent a belated Valentine's Day with one of Hollywood's greatest character actors.

Peter Lorre rose to fame on the stages of Vienna and Berlin before his breakthrough performance in the 1931 film M. It was an international sensation. He went on to star in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much and made his American debut with the 1935 film Mad Love. Lorre had a very successful run at Warner Bros. and co-starred in numerous screen classics including The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and The Beast With Five Fingers. He desperately sought to play a more diverse range of roles like the kind he enjoyed on the stage, but was unfortunately typecast in mostly sinister parts. He worked right up until the end of his life and is still widely regarded as one of the great character actors in film history. There is also an entire book dedicated to his influence on the world of animation.

The Recipe

The Peter Lorre recipe is from the book "What Actors Eat When They Eat" (1939) by Kenneth Harlan and Rex Lease.

Ingredients

6 Pork chops

6 Potatoes

1 Onion

1 tsp Flour

Milk

Condensed milk

Half and half

Sour Cream

Garlic powder

Salt & Pepper

Herbs of your choice

Directions

There are many ways to make this as Danny and Ruth both discussed in the video. Ruth is a veteran of making pork chops, so here's her advice.

Get thin pork chops. Thicker ones tend to make much longer to cook. Trim the fat and seasoned all sides of the pork chop. Put the fat in a frying pan and cook. Sear the pork chops on both sides. Slice the potatoes thinly by hand along with onions. Season with garlic powder, salt, pepper and a blend of herbs. Season the potatoes and onions and layer then in cooking pan in layers with pork chops. Add milk, condensed milk, half and half, sour cream and a table spoon of flour and any other seasoning you'd like to add.

Bake at 400 degrees covered for 1 hour. Uncover and put back in oven for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

Special Guest

Stephen D. Youngkin is the author of "The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre" and appeared in an A&E Biography tribute to Peter Lorre.

Learn more online at https://www.peterlorrebook.com/

Danny Miller is a journalist, editor and film history expert. He also co-authored the book "About Face: The Life and Times of Dottie Ponedel: Make-up Artist to the Stars" with Meredith Ponedel.

Ruth Mundsack really loves being a part of the TCM community and she's a co-creator of a Classic Film Club in Long Beach, CA. She has been to several TCM Film Festivals and it gives her absolute joy to meet friends and be part of the classic film community or #MyTribe. If you want to follow her on Social Media she's @Cary_Grant_Girl on the Twitter, GirlattheBch on Instagram and Silver Screen LBC on Facebook.