As I don’t have a good video camera, I can’t make movies to show you how to cook the recipes I’m publishing here. Nonetheless, I found another solution, which I hope will help you cook delicious meals: a video-recipes series of posts from famous and less famous cooks. For today, chef Keith Snow demonstrates his very popular & delicious pork chops recipe.
Tag: chops
Marinated meat is much better than usual steaks. That’s because of the action active ingredients in a marinade have upon the meat tissues, breaking them up and dissolving connective tissue (which is responsible for the toughness of some meat cuts). The issue with marinades is that the process of marinating really calls for larger batches of marinade and pork chops, otherwise it’s wasteful of the marinade ingredients, especially of the more expensive herbs and spices.
Pork chops can be marinated in advance, then frozen separately for later cooking one at a time, but only in the following conditions:
- Freeze only fresh pork chops. If the meat was already frozen before you use it, do not freeze it one more because it’s detrimental to your health and may determine food poisoning.
- Use special freezer bags to store the marinated pork chops. You can add a bit of the marinade inside the bags, for preserving even more flavor.
- Make separate portions, small enough to be cooked at once and eaten within 1-2 days. Once frozen, cutting the meat or separating the chops will be almost impossible, so it’s wiser to think ahead when you make the packs for the freezer.
Can any of you offer us some more tricks for freezing marinated pork chops?
Pork chop recipes are among the special dishes I enjoy cooking quite frequently. Nonetheless, pork meals can become boring if there’s no alternation of flavors and “auxiliary” ingredients. A touch of creativity is always needed, be it in the kitchen or in other areas of life. Please notice I said “a touch”. If you get too creative, people around you might get scared. It’s up to each of us to decide how far we can push our creativity in order not to trouble the fragile balance of our little personal world.
What I’m suggesting today is an unusual main dish recipe. It’s unusual because it brings together pork chops with cranberries and with orange marmalade in the same dish, in a sweet and sour surprise for your gustatory system and eventually for your brain.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup fresh cranberries, chopped (frozen ones are also fine, but the real taste and aroma are always in fresh foods)
- 2 tablespoons orange marmalade
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 pork chops (bone-in, about 1 inch thick)
- 2 tablespoons honey
- salt and pepper to taste
Cooking Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Oil an average size baking dish (cover is not needed, so don’t worry if your dish doesn’t have a lid).
In a bowl, mix the cranberries with the orange marmalade and with the ground cloves. With a meat knife, carefully cut a pocket in each pork chop by cutting into it toward the bone; spoon the cranberry mixture into these pockets.
Place the pork chops in the baking dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour one tablespoon of honey over each chop, trying to cover as much as you can of its surface. Bake the food uncovered for about 50 minutes. The honey will create a sweet glaze over the chops, which will combine with the sourness of the cranberries into an exotic taste you’ll either love or hate (there’s no middle way here).