I haven’t been indulging myself with cooked meals these past few weeks and to be honest, have lived on chocolate bars, muesli, biscuits, yoghurt, fruit and the decaying salad in my fridge. Yes. Indeed, I am a disgrace to the food community. But a true university geek, at least??? Managed to purchase some lovely, fresh pork loin chops from the shop after my linguistics seminar yesterday and had been looking forward to this all day.
Initially, I was going to make an orange, apple puree and ginger sauce and serve it with some stir-fried oriental vegetables. However, my chauffeur (a.k.a. Alex Prentice/James Goodchild) were unable to come to my service; but as always, we make do. Thank goodness for that too or I wouldn’t have discovered this sauce of mine. I have always grown up with the idea of pork chops having to be served with something sweet - i.e. apple sauce or a marmalade sauce. In terms of Chinese cuisine, I love my pork roasted - cha shau or served in sweet and sour sauce with sesame seeds. The Koreans have bi bim bab and if I remember correctly, the marinade for the pork is somewhat sweet as well. All I’m saying here is that a little sweetness goes a long way for pork.
This sauce is not overly sweet and has the flavour of both honey and a Japanese teriyaki sauce to bring out the taste of good pork. Here is where I take the good ole pork chop and take it to Japan. Presenting to you my Meet-Japan Pork Chops with New Potatoes & Mushrooms fried in Rosemary Butter.
Ingredients for 2 servings
2 pork chops, new potatoes, olive oil, cup mushrooms
For the sauce:
About 5 tbs Teriyaki marinade sauce, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbs honey, tomato puree, oregano, fresh rosemary (this was picked on Uni campus - how amazing is that!), ground black pepper, hot chili powder, 2 tsp of rice vinegar, tiny bit of balsamic vinegar (a few drops will do really), chopped red onions and a crushed clove of garlic. Mix this altogether. The honey and tomato puree should thicken the sauce a bit. Make sure you keep tasting so you know what to add to alter it to your likeness. I say keep the chili powder to less than half a tsp so you don’t overdo it.
Rosemary Butter:
Get some good salted butter you trust (Lurpak, Kerrygold, President are some really good and versatile brands), crushed rosemary, crushed dried garlic and tiny bit of salt (optional). Mix it all together and leave it aside.
Marinade the pork chops in the sauce for at least an hour. Seafood and vegetables marinade for a maximum time in the fridge of 1hr. All other meats do best to marinade for an hour or more. Pork and beef work well when left overnight but if you’re a hungry bunny like me - an hour should do the trick. When ready to cook, chop the potatoes into good chunks and boil till cooked. Remove from hot water, leave in saucepan and cover to allow steaming for 2min. Whilst this is happening, heat some olive oil and rosemary butter in a pan.
Get the marinaded pork out from the fridge. Put some olive oil in a good baking tray and place the pork chops in it. Place a crushed garlic clove on each chop, and enough sauce to cover. Make sure to leave some of the sauce behind to baste the meat later and for serving. Pop it into the oven or under a grill, whichever works for you for about 30min. Now, fry the potatoes till golden brown. Remove from pan and stick it into the oven to keep warm. Fry the sliced mushrooms on low heat.
After 30min, remove the pork from the oven and recoat with another layer of sauce. Slide it back into the oven for another 15min or so. Make sure it’s cooked before serving (you must be very careful with meat)!
When everything’s good and ready, drizzle the reserved sauce over these pork chops and serve with the potatoes and mushrooms. I promise you a treat. It may not be all of Japan in one mouthful but a twang of it still sends me away on a cloud of bliss.
