I think I need an introduction here
There, that’s better. Yes, I’ll talk about my pork chop meal experiment but first, I’ll discuss how I got to the point where I wanted to make a pork chop dinner.
It was 1995 and I had a hankerin’ for meat. Not weird in and of itself, but I had been a vegetarian for the last nine years. My descent back into meat eating happened all at once — shortly after moving to Arizona from Indiana. I suddenly and inexplicably wanted chicken. It was weird, I was perusing the menu at this restaurant in the Old Town section of Albuquerque, NM and out of the blue, a chicken dish caught my eye. I mean really caught my eye as in, oh, wow, that looks so good! I must get it! Now! So, I ordered the chicken. My mom (who was out visiting me at the time) was surprised to say the least. Since that time, I haven’t turned into a raging carnivore (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but I do not shy away from the delicious meat dishes.
Granted, I mostly stick to chicken, turkey and fish at home — but every so often I have been known to order steak, pork or lamb while eating out. But, my personal culinary skills seem to reside mostly in the poultry arena. Last weekend, however, I came to the conclusion that since I had mastered the fowl — it was now time to move on to the swine.
After searching sources for a suitable recipe, I decided on this one from Sara Moulton — Pork Chops with Wild Mushrooms, because it seemed both pretty straightforward and tastily appealing.
Some notes on what I did differently
I used a mix of shitake and portobello for the mushrooms and stuck to parsley, chives and tarragon for my herbs. I cooked the mushrooms right in the pork fat after removing the chops (before adding the stock & wine) and baked the mushrooms in the oven along with everything else. This way, the mushrooms get very flavorful with all of the tasty pork juices and assorted drippings.
I bought boneless pork chops from New Seasons, instead of boned ones, which seemed to cut down on my oven cooking time by about 10 minutes. I cooked the pork to a temperature of 160 degrees, which is what all of the information online told me was safe. In addition, I omitted the cream because I didn’t have any. It didn’t seem to matter much because the sauce was amazingly good even without it — next time, I will make double sauce.
Pork Chops with Wild Mushrooms
2 tsp oil
2 (1-inch) thick pork rib chops
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup madeira
1/2 pound assorted wild mushrooms
2 tsp butter
Splash of cream
2 tbsp fines herbes (mixture of equal parts chopped chives, chervil, parsley and tarragon)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper. Add pork to the skillet and sauté until brown, about 3 minutes per side. Remove from heat and transfer the pork to a square baking dish. Add the chicken stock and madeira to the skillet. Place over medium-high heat. Boil until reduced by half, scraping up browned bits, about 6 minutes. Pour over the pork.
Clean and slice the mushrooms. Heat 2 teaspoons butter in the pork skillet. Add mushrooms to the skillet and sauté until softened and brown.
Bake pork until tender, about 25 minutes.
Transfer pork chops to serving plates. Place sauce over heat. Add mushrooms and a splash of cream into the sauce and bring to a boil. Stir the fines herbes into the sauce just before serving, reserving some to sprinkle over the pork chops. Spoon sauce over the pork chops. Sprinkle with more fines herbs.
Accompaniments
Smashed potatoes with rosemary, lavender, garlic and yogurt, along with braised brussel sprouts. The potatoes are somewhat self-explanatory, I used new potatoes, boiled them, then went to town with a potato masher — although I left some potato chunks, as I believe that is the difference between smashed & mashed. Then, I mixed in fresh rosemary, some lavender, butter, garlic, salt, pepper and made it a little creamy with some non-fat, plain yogurt.
The brussel sprouts were cleaned, sliced in half and then sautéed in some butter with some diced onions, over medium high heat until they had caramelized a bit. Then I added chicken stock, turned down the heat and let them braise in the stock until tender — maybe 20 minutes or so and then finished them up with some salt and pepper.
Observations
1. Try pork chops with bones next time.
2. Make double…no, no triple the sauce.
3. Maybe try the sauce with the cream at some point, but seriously, even without the cream, it was really good.
4. I liked it and thought it turned out pretty well…jwa liked it too.