New! Food and Recipes!

Roberta over at her blog site, More Thyme Than Dough, recently posted the recipe for maple-glazed pork chops. I’ve never made a pork chop in my life. Nevertheless, I was intrigued because I love maple anything. Maple syrup is especially good with bacon. Yum! So I figured pork chops couldn’t be much of a stretch.

Since I’m not very familiar with pork, being Jewish and a former vegan and all, I decided I needed a crash course in preparing pork chops. I studied up over here: How to Cook Pork Chops. This article helped me choose my cut of meat and gave me a pretty good idea of how long to cook the chops and at what temperature. (This is pretty darn scary for me as I was raised with the notion that under-cooked pork will do nasty stuff to you.)

I decided upon 1″ thick French-cut pork chops because it seems that leaving the bone in makes for a more moist, tender cut of meat, and the thickness of the chop is key to avoiding my usual tendency to turn a piece of meat into a charcoal briquette. The article states that today’s pork is a much leaner cut of meat than it once was, so it’s easy to overcook a pork chop.

I also bought local pork because I like to support local businesses and my daughter insists commercial pigs are not always raised under optimal conditions.

So in addition to digging up some potatoes, pulling an onion out of the garage storage bin (harvested my onions a couple months ago) and picking a couple of ripe tomatoes, I sorta combined Roberta’s recipe with the instructions from the Culinary Arts article and voila! The result was perfection.

Pre-heat oven to 400′.

Maple Glaze: (I made some changes since I didn’t have all the ingredients. Click on the above link to Roberta’s site for the original recipe.)

7/8 cup maple syrup

1/3 cup soy sauce

3 Tbs. ketchup (should be tomato paste but I was out.)

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Whisk together, set aside.

Cabbage and Smashed New Potatoes:

1 small head green or purple cabbage

1 large onion

1 lb small potatoes

4 Tbs. unsalted butter

salt, pepper

Simmer the potatoes in salted water until tender. Remove from heat and set aside. Chop onion. Core and chop cabbage roughly. Large pieces are okay. Melt butter in a large saute pan or Dutch oven. Saute onions and cabbage. Season with salt and pepper. When onions and cabbage begins to caramelize, add potatoes, smashing each potato with your fingers or a fork as you add it to the pan. Continue to saute until potatoes are just turning brown. Check for seasoning. Season to taste. Turn off heat and set aside. I covered my pan.

Pork Chops:

Set on a washable surface. (I set mine on butcher paper.) Pat both sides dry with a paper towel. Sprinkle with Kosher salt, pressing salt into the surface of the meat with your fingertips. (Wash your hands, of course.)

Coat the bottom of a large oven-proof saute pan with canola oil. I used approximately 3 Tbs. of canola oil. Turn the stove on med-high to high and let the pan heat up until oil is just smoking hot. Carefully place pork chops into pan. Adjust heat down a little. Do not move pork chops for 3 minutes. Turn over and allow to cook exactly 3 minutes on the other side. Place pan in pre-heated oven and cook for 7 minutes. To check for doneness, press a finger into the center of each chop. If the meat feels mushy, leave the chops in the oven for another 1-2 minutes. If the meat feels firm and springy, it is done. I actually cooked mine exactly 8 minutes.

(While meat cooks, wash and dry 2 cups of baby arugula and slice 2 fresh, ripe tomatoes.)

Remove pork chops from oven. Set on a serving platter. Cover with aluminum foil and let rest for 4-5 minutes. While pork chops are resting, re-heat cabbage and smashed potatoes.

Pour most of the oil out of the saute pan. Return to stove top. Turn burner to med-high. Pour in maple glaze. Bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 2-3 minutes. Reduce heat. Add pork chops, turning to coat both sides.

Arrange plate with baby arugula and sliced tomatoes, cabbage and smashed potatoes, and top with pork chop. Spoon reduced maple glaze over all.

Don’t ask me how many calories or the cost because I don’t know and I don’t remember. The onion, potatoes, and tomatoes were from my garden. I buy Grade B maple syrup and soy sauce in bulk. The local pork was only a dollar more per pound than the commercially raised pork.

Best of all (from our perspective) we get 2 meals out of this. We each ate half of our supper last night so this will be lunch today.

Be sure to check Roberta’s site, More Thyme Than Dough. She does a great job of breaking down the cost of all her meals.

Enjoy! Thanks for visiting!