October was invent a new recipe month. November was random Good Eats episode month. December is… back to inventing a new recipe. Another simple recipe that I can practice getting quick on, and maybe incorporate it into a meal (with the chicken bacon sweet onion stirfry).
Since I made a stirfry last time, I didn’t want to do a stirfry again. But I wanted to do something else that was simple and quick, something that I could do at the same time as the stirfry. So a pan-roasted pork chop with a sauce seemed like a good fit. I wanted to keep the same flavor profiles, so balsamic vinegar and Madeira are in. But I didn’t want a complete repeat, and onions aren’t the best flavor profile for a pork chop sauce, and I wanted to try something with grapes (grapes are really versatile), so I decided to saute some grapes. And of course, adding rosemary and thyme (which are the best and second best herbs, respectively) for a complete flavor profile.
So, without further ado, the recipe, after the cut…
Ingredients
2 oz thick-cut bacon (as many slices as you can fit on a 8-inch frying pan)
8 oz thin cut pork chop (about 3/4 inch thick, top loin or sirloin preferred)
kosher salt
ground black pepper
1/4 cup grape juice
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp Madeira
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 sprig fresh rosemary (or 1/2 sprig if you have large sprigs), chopped
2 sprig fresh thyme, chopped
2 oz red seedless grapes, chopped in half (or in quarters if they’re big grapes)
Instructions
- Bring bacon and pork chop to room temperature and dry with paper towels. Coat pork chop with a bit of salt and pepper.
- Mix grape juice, brown sugar, Madeira, cornstarch, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, and thyme to make a slurry.
- On a hot 8-inch frying pan over medium-high heat, cook bacon until bacon strips start to curl and start to become slightly crispy (about 40 seconds each side). Remove bacon from pan and set aside.
- On the same hot pan, saute the pork chop, about 45 seconds each side. Remove from pan and loosely cover in foil.
- Lower heat on frying pan to low heat. Saute grapes until brown (about 1 minute).
- Add the liquid mixture. Raise heat to medium heat. Heat sauce until it simmers and covers the back of a spoon. Lower heat and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Layer pork chops with bacon, top with sauce, and serve.
Serves 1.
Sunday, December 7, 2014 – Today was my first attempt at the recipe. The recipe started off a lot differently. For one, there was no grape juice, and the ratios were all different. (Notably, there was more wine, more vinegar, and more rosemary.) The original recipe was good, but the flavor was way too heavy, too much rosemary, salt, pepper, and not sweet enough. As you can see, I’ve since corrected the recipe.
I also bought a “normal” cut of pork. Before cooking, it was 1 inch thick. After cooking, it actually got thicker and reached almost 1.5 inches thick. Which really threw off the sauce to meat ratio. That was when I switched to the thin cut variety, so it would cook faster and give me a better sauce to meat ratio. (Not that the meat isn’t bad, but I invested my effort into making an Awesome Sauce.)
As far as timing, the whole thing took me 1 hour 10 minutes. 16 minutes was pre-cooking cleaning, 33 minutes was chopping, and 21 minutes was the actual cooking. So yeah, I need to get faster at prep. (I’m convinced that Rachael Ray’s 30-minute meals don’t include prep time.)
Monday, December 15, 2014 – Like I said, I corrected the recipe. I reduced the amount of vinegar, wine, and rosemary, didn’t hit the pork chops with quite so much salt and pepper. This was also the day I added the grape juice. I also tried doubling the brown sugar this time, but as it turns out, the grape juice added enough sweetness that I didn’t need so much brown sugar.
Overall, the flavor was much better. (Although a little on the sweet side.) It was sweet and grape-y juice-y, but still had the richness, savory-ness, and a hint of rosemary.
Also, like I said, I switched to thin cut pork chops (which were about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in thickness). As it turns out, thin cut pork chops cook super quick. (Pork cooks quickly in general.) So 1 minute on each side cooked the pork chop completely. Didn’t even have to finish it in the oven. (Maybe a little too overcooked. And the bacon fat splattering. I guess I should lower the heat and timing a bit.) The bacon was also a little too crispy, so I bumped down the timing for that too.
Still delicious.
Sunday, December 21, 2014 – Third time’s the charm. So I made the changes I talked about last time, namely bumping the sugar back down to 1 Tbsp. (It’s still sweet though. If I were to do this for someone else, I’d prolly cut the sugar altogether. And if they were willing to “dispose” of the wine, use a chardonnay or something instead of the Madeira.)
And, also like I said last time, I also dropped the heat and timing on both the bacon and the pork chops. Because pork cooks quickly. Specifically, I lowered the heat from 8.0 to 6.0 on my induction range. (Which is a really powerful induction range, so I’m still getting a lot of heat.) I’m cooking the bacon for 40 seconds each side and the pork chop 45 seconds each side. The bacon’s nice and crispy, and the pork chop is a nice medium well. I think we nailed it.
Bonus #1: I also made a salad. The idea is, if I wanted to serve the pork chops in a dinner, I’d want a salad to go with it. And I decided to make the meal revolve around the grapes. So here’s a salad made with salad greens (specifically “spring mix”, whatever that is), grapes (red, seedless, chopped), walnuts (chopped), and goat cheese. And I made some balsamic vinaigrette to go with it. But the grapes, nuts, and cheese add so much flavor to the salad, you don’t need much vinaigrette.
Bonus #2: And what kind of meal is complete without a dessert? To continue on our theme of grapes: grape sorbet.
Ingredients
8oz red, seedless grapes
2 Tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 Tbsp sweet wine (such as Madeira or Moscato)
1 Tbsp grape juice (for color)
1 pinch salt
Instructions
- Optionally, peel the grapes. (The sorbet is better without the grape skins, but it’s not the end of the world if you leave them on.)
- Blend all ingredients in a blender.
- Put puree in a shallow covered dish and put it in the freezer. Stir every 30-45 minutes.
- Sorbet is done when it has the consistency of snow.
Serves 4.
Bonus #3: Sauteing a pork chop in progress. This was back when I was doing thick cut (or rather, normal cut) pork chops, and I just flipped the pork chop, so you can really see the difference between the sear on one side and how the other side is just starting to cook. (I texted this to my friend, and she started salivating. To be fair, she was hungry at the time.)