And now, a tip from "Cooking with Jared..." :-)
Recently, we were given some pork chops, and so we had them for supper tonight. They turned out really nicely, so I thought that I'd share what I did. I would post a picture, but "they were aaallllllll gone!"
Supper prep started yesterday, when I made a quick brine for the meat. The brine makes them more tender and flavorful, and makes them cook quicker. For the brine, I started by coating both sides of the six pork chops in garlic sea salt. Then I put them in a plastic bowl and sprinkled the top side with a little cayenne pepper. I put about a cup of apple juice in the bowl and filled the rest of the bowl with hot water. I put the lid on it and put it in the fridge overnight.
Tonight, I preheated the oven to 350 degress. Then I heated a medium-sized frying pan on medium-high heat with about a quarter stick of butter. I cooked 3 at a time in the pan. Here's what I did to seal in the flavor. I took the bowl of chops out of the fridge. I took them directly out of the brine, and into the frying pan, one at a time. When you start cooking the chops, you want to sear each surface of the meat before cooking it, starting with the edges. I'd take each edge and hold it to the hot pan for about ten seconds, then turn it, until all six sides had been seared, holding the flavor inside. Then I laid it into the pan. Once the pan was full, I used a timer to time 1 minute each side, until they had cooked in the pan for a total of 6 minutes (3 minutes each side). By turning pork this way, you keep it from burning, and by timing it, you can tell when its cooked (with pork its hard to tell, sometimes).
Next, I transferred them to a cookie sheet, lined with aluminum foil. I put the first three on the sheet, then covered them with foil and put them in the oven. Then I cooked the other three, using another quarter stick of butter, and added them to the cookie sheet, and re-covered them, putting them back in the oven. I then turned the oven off, but kept the door shut.
After the chops were pan-fried and in the oven, I turned the stove burner off, but did not empty the drippings from the pan. Then I cut, pealed, and finely chopped two red delicious apples and put them in the frying pan that still had the drippings in it. After the apples were all in the pan, I turned the burner back onto medium-high, and simmered the apples until they were soft. Then I spread the apples around the edge of the pan and added about 2 cups of store-bought apple sauce. I put the other half of the stick of butter in the middle of the pan. As it was melting, I added about 3 tablespoons of raw honey to the butter, and turned the heat down to medium.
I stirred the apples, butter, and honey altogether, and then used a fork to beat in two egg yolks. You have to keep beating them to keep them from curdling or scrambling. After about a minute, I removed the apples from the burner, and let them thicken a minute. I pulled the chops from the oven and crimped the foil around them with my fingers, leaving them on the counter to rest for about 5 minutes.
I cut up some sharp white cheddar cheese sticks and set the table while the meat was resting. Then I dished up the plates. I put a spoonful of the hot apple sauce on the plate with the pork chop on top. Then I put a spoonful of the cold (store-bought) apple sauce on the side for contrast, along with the cheese sticks. I served each plate with a glass of cold milk.
And, why, you may ask, did I write such a long post about my dinner? Well, that is how I got out of washing the supper dishes. They should be done about now... :-)
"Delicious" ~ my wife
"It was real good!" ~ Enoch
"I LIKE Fork Chops!" ~ Ezra
"Can I have some more chicken?" ~ Enoch and Ezra
