August 27th 2007
mmm, dinner
Apparently, my readers like my food posts. How do I know? I get more comments on them. I can’t really blame you—everything else I’ve written lately has been pathetic.
At any rate, for everyone’s culinary pleasure, here’s another food post. We had some pork chops in the freezer and Mr. Angst wanted me to do something roasty and Italiany with them. I went a-searching, and came across this , which I’m pretty sure I remember reading back in 2004 when it was originally posted but never made. It seemed to fit the bill quite nicely, so I dove right in. (OK, I had to go buy some sage first, but the grocery is only a few blocks away. It would have been better if this was Tuesday, when I could have scampered over to the farmer’s market, though.)
With no further ado, then, here’s how to make it.
Important with this recipe: get everything set first. Sometimes you can prep as you go, but it’s easier with this one if you get your mise en place ready.
Collect ten or so sage leaves, and pull the stems off. Then thinly slice a large garlic clove or two medium cloves. Juice a large lemon. Then salt and pepper about a pound of pork chops. I used three boneless “America’s cut” chops.
Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. You could use pure olive oil, but lately I’ve been using something called Olivextra, which is basically olive oil mixed with some canola oil. It raises the smoke point of the olive oil so it doesn’t burn so easily. You’re not getting a lot of that olive oil flavor when you heat olive oil, so you might as well make your life easier and not risk the burning.
When the oil is shimmering, lay the sage leaves in the oil. When they start to curl around the edges and the edges are getting just a little brown, pull them out. I used tongs, and that worked fine, though you could use a slotted spoon or a spider skmmer. Then lay the garlic in, and saute it until it starts to turn golden brown. Be careful here—you don’t want the garlic to burn. Pull it out as soon as it starts to get some color!
Now that your oil is all infused with lovely sage and garlic flavors, place the pork chops in the pan. Mine were a little under an inch thick, and I cooked them for four minutes on each side, which was a little too long (I like my pork medium to medium rare, and they turned out a little closer to medium well). Next time I’ll probably do three minutes on each side.
Once the chops are cooked, pour in the lemon juice and then add the sage and garlic back to the pan. Stir everything in together. If there are any browned bits in your pan, scrape them up and mix into the sauce. I had no fond because I was using a very non-stick non-stick pan, but it still turned out excellent, so no worries if you don’t need to deglaze. Let the juice and all the other good stuff in the pan come together, but don’t overcook it. Once the sauce starts to look a little thickened, pull the pan off the heat.
Place the pork chops on your plates, pour the sauce over them, making sure to equally allocate the sage and garlic, and serve with roasted potato wedges and a nice salad.
