Tag Archives: meat

Mustard Pork Chops

DSC_0015

Why have I been blogging about food so much recently? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a simple progression of facts that goes something like this:

brother-in-law John staying with us = less (read “no”) leftovers = what are we going to eat?? = must cook more = increased perusal of cookbooks and magazines = exciting meal plans = utter deliciousness = must share via blog

When John leaves us mid-August to pursue his MA, I know it will be a shock to our systems. Suddenly there will be leftovers in the fridge. I’ll start asking myself in a confused fashion, “why is there so much food lying around?” (I can see this coming because this is exactly what happened last summer after he moved out) Leftovers will start decaying before we even have time to eat them. This will lead to guilt, which will lead to less cooking, which will lead to less awesome recipes being made.

Noooo!

What I’m trying to say is that I enjoy cooking for more than two people. And I will miss John’s table-side enthusiasm for the things I make.

But now it’s time to stop talking about John and start talking about pork.

I love the idea of pork, but it’s so easy to cook it wrong and end up with a mouthful of dried-out blah. Another delicious recipe from Nigella Express, I love these chops. If your experience of pork is a dry, flavorless affair, this just might be the recipe that will change everything.

It’s simple to make: a little tenderizing (to get your aggression out), a little frying, and three simple ingredients for a sauce that will send you to the moon.

DSC_0012

Also, a brother-in-law can come quite in handy for wielding the meat-smashing mallet.

DSC_0009

And for clean-up, I recommend that you obtain a couple of willing men so that you can put your feet up afterwards and demand that bonbons be brought to you pronto.

Aaaaaah.

DSC_0004

Ingredients

(Serves 3-4)

4 pork chops
1 ½ TBS olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 cup hard cider
2 TBS wholegrain mustard
2/3 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper, to taste

1. To make the garlic oil, put the garlic through a garlic press and immerse in the oil for about 10 minutes. Remove the garlic, and the oil is ready to go.

2. Trim the fat off the pork chops. Score a light diamond pattern on both sides with a knife and the smash them until they’re thinned out. Season with salt and pepper on both sides.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet. When hot, add the pork chops and cook them for 5 minutes on each side. Remove them to a covered plate to keep them warm.

4. Pour the cider into the pan and let it bubble up, scraping up any brown bits.

5. Add the mustard and cream to the pan. Let the sauce cook for a couple minutes, stirring. You can consider the sauce done at this point; it will be light in color, runny, and perfectly delicious.

DSC_0024

6. Or, you can let the sauce continue to bubble away for 8-10 minutes, stirring only occasionally, and it will thicken into a gravy-like gelatinous consistency with a stronger flavor. Also delicious!

7. Pour the sauce over the pork chops and serve.

For your reference, here’s a picture of the chops with the lighter sauce:

DSC_0047

And here’s a picture with the darker sauce:

DSC_0057

Oodelally it’s good. Thanks, Nigella. Or, as my sisters and I like to say in the most obnoxious, glitzed-out movie-star voice you can muster, “spanks!”

Click here for printer-friendly version: Mustard Pork Chops 

 

Garlic Pork and Sweet Potato Hash

Recently I had a brief cleaning and purging frenzy, and I decided to sort through the stack of magazines in our living room and toss the majority of them. But not until I scanned them for recipes first, of course! I was driven by the fear that by blindly throwing them away, some amazing piece of culinary genius might end up in the trash instead of on my plate, and I would miss out without knowing what I was missing out on. (Is anyone else plagued by this fear when the purging of magazines is at hand?)

Anyway, weird magazine manias aside, I ended up with three recipes that I stuck on the fridge and plan on making in the weeks to come. This first one was from an issue of Better Homes and Gardens (Sept 2012), and it is incredible! There are a few separate steps–the garlic has too cook first, then be removed, the pork has to be cooked and then removed, etc–but it all happens in the same skillet, so it doesn’t create a pile of dishes.

This is some of the best pork I’ve eaten recently–tender and with perfectly balanced flavors. The sweet and salty syrup and the crunchy fried garlic are amazing together, and I can’t wait to make this again.

And what was Alice up to during all this cooking, you may ask? Well, snoozing her little head off.

There’s no better place to be in the evening than her dad’s arms. Especially after an exhausting day of cooing, fussing, napping, cooing, fussing, and napping. Oh, and contemplating the connection between her arm and her hand and the possibility of hitting that hanging toy that jingles.

And the arm bone’s connected to the . . . 

. . . hand bone, and the hand bone’s connected to the . . .

. . . hanging toy bone . . .

Yep. All of that is simply exhausting. And you can’t blame her–I mean, learning that your hand is your hand? And that you can use it to reach out and touch something?

That’s huge.

Anyway, with my adjustments, here’s the recipe. And if you happen to have a sleeping baby around as you cook, it enhances the experience like you wouldn’t believe.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

2 large sweet potatoes, scrubbed and chopped into small cubes
1 ½ lb pork tenderloin
8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced in rounds
3 TBS olive oil
2 green onions, minced
3 TBS soy sauce
3 TBS honey
3 TBS water
Salt and pepper, to taste

  1. Place chopped potatoes in a microwave-safe bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and cut 8 or so slits to ventilate. Microwave 8 minutes on high, stirring halfway through.
  2. Cut pork tenderloin into slices 1 inch thick. Butterfly the slices by cutting into them ¾ of the way (with the knife running parallel to the cutting board), opening and flattening them. Sprinkle with black pepper.
  3. Mix together the soy sauce, water and honey; brush the pork slices lightly with this mixture and reserve the rest.
  4. In a 12 inch nonstick skillet, heat the garlic and oil together over medium high heat. Cook the garlic until it is just turning a golden brown; remove and set aside.
  5. In the same skillet, cook the pork 2-3 minutes per side, until browned and about 160 F. Remove the pork to a platter and cover to keep warm.
  6. Add more oil to the skillet if necessary and let it reheat for a minute or two. When the oil is hot, add the sweet potato cubes and cook for 5-7 minutes, until brown and beginning to crisp, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Stir the green onions into the sweet potatoes, remove and set aside.
  8. In the same skillet, pour in the soy sauce/water/honey mixture and whisk over medium high heat until bubbly (just about a minute). Remove the syrup from the heat.
  9. Serve each plate with a pile of sweet potatoes and some slices of pork topped with the syrup and fried garlic.

Click here for printer-friendly version: Garlic Pork and Sweet Potato Hash