Red-Hot Currant-Glazed Pork Chops #BloggerCLUE

These tender bone-in pork chops are marinated with sweet and spicy red currant sauce, then cooked to juicy perfection. These are seriously good! Make sure you have two or four diners because three will fight over the last chop and ruin the whole evening. 

I am a notorious procrastinator. Well, perhaps that is a bit strong because notoriety would imply that a wide number of folks know of my procrastination when it’s probably just close friends and family. Because, so far, I have always managed to slip in under the deadline wire. When I was in school, my best 20-page papers were written in fewer than 24 hours - of course, I had (mostly) done my research but just hadn’t started putting pen to paper- and my best essays and stories got their final -30-, journalistic shorthand for The End, at about 3 a.m., mere hours before they were due. I tell myself I write best under pressure when time constraints don’t allow a bunch of faffing about. As an old professor of mine once said, “Tell ‘em what you are gonna tell ‘em, tell ‘em, then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” Introduction, body, conclusion.

Which brings me to this post, which, true to form, I am writing on the day I need to publish it. (Yay for time zones that give me “extra” time.) BUT: Way back in December, just a couple of days after I was given my assignment for February’s Blogger C.L.U.E. Society, where we poke around in someone else’s blog for a recipe that fits our clue or theme – in this case RED – I found THE recipe I wanted to make. And I wanted to make it and eat it so much that I jumped in my car and ran to the store for supplies. These gorgeous pork chops, from Christiane of Taking On Magazines were dinner that very night! The sauce is sweet and spicy and, if there hadn’t been pork chops, I could have eaten it with a spoon. So now you know how to motivate me to move more quickly.

If you haven’t met Christiane yet, you need to pop over and have a browse through her site. It’s full of great recipes that she has tested from a variety of food magazines and cookbooks, so you’ll know what works and what doesn’t, in a normal kitchen, as she says, with “kids underfoot, animals prowling the room, husbands peering over shoulders and all the interruptions that the regular Mom Chef has to face.” Since 2009, she’s shared which recipes worked for her and what she’d change if she made them again, as well as favorites from her multicultural family. And she does it all with a great sense of humor.

The red-hot currant-glazed pork chop original recipe came from Cooking Light Magazine, October 2014, and included a side dish of carrots that I have omitted. Here’s the link to Christiane’s post.

Ingredients
1/2 cup or 160g red currant jelly
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
4 (6-ounce) bone-in center-cut loin pork chops (Together mine weighed almost half a pound more or 1kg total.)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Parsley, optional for serving

Method
Combine the first four ingredients in a small bowl and stir well.

Place your pork chops on a large plate and spoon about a quarter of the jelly mixture over them, spread it around with the back of the spoon and turn them over halfway through to put marinade on both sides. Cover with cling film and marinate in refrigerator for one hour. (Mine marinated for about three hours, till I was ready to cook dinner.) Reserve remaining jelly mixture in the refrigerator.

Christiane’s – or possibly Cooking Light’s – instructions say to broil the chops but my broiler is a sad, sad thing that doesn’t give off much heat so I preheated my oven to 400°F or 200°C.

And continued thus:

If any liquid has accumulated in the bottom of your plate, pour it off and discard. Dry the chops lightly with paper towel.

Heat your grill pan to scorching hot and lay the pork chops in on one side for 4 minutes.

Turn them over and pop in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to rest on a warmed plate for about five minutes. Season the chops with the salt and pepper.

Spoon remaining fresh marinade over chops. Sprinkle with a little parsley, if desired.

Enjoy!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell her that Christiane’s Cherry Port Glazed Pork Loin Roast, Avocado Salad with Spicy Cilantro and Red Chili Salsa, Bistro Steak with Red Wine Sauce and Red Wine Braised Short Ribs were all strong contenders to fit our Red February theme. But the pork chops won!

Many thanks to the organizers of the Blogger C.L.U.E. Society challenge each month, Christiane from Taking on Magazines, Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake and Kate from Kate’s Kitchen.

If you are planning a special meal for Valentine’s Day or perhaps for one of the upcoming red carpet television-watching events, look no further for inspiration. Today, seeing RED is a good thing:

• Bacon & Cheddar Savory Bread Pudding Bites by Lisa from Authentic Suburban Gourmet
• Banana Cranberry White Chocolate Muffins by Aly from Cooking in Stilettos
• Blood Orange Mojito by Anna from Anna Dishes
• Buffalo Roasted Chickpeas by Janet from Cupcakes to Caviar
• Cherry Almond Coconut Bars by Jean from Lemons and Anchovies
• Dark Chocolate Pomegranate Bark by Ramona from Curry and Comfort
• Garlicky Roasted Tomatoes by Azmina from Lawyer Loves Lunch
• Love Potion #9 w/ Raspberry Chambord Ice Cubes by Christy from Confessions of a Culinary Diva
• Madam Wong's Pizza Rolls by Kelli from Kelli's Kitchen
• Negroni by Kate from Kate's Kitchen
• Paloma Naranjada Cocktail by Stacy from Food Lust People Love
• Pomegranate-Lime Granita by Debra from Eliot's Eats
• Raspberry Amaretto Bundt Cake by Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Raspberry-Strawberry Puff Pancake by Alice from A Mama, Baby and Shar-pei in the Kitchen
• Red-Hot Currant-Glazed Pork Chops by Stacy from Food Lust People Love
• Red Velvet Cupcakes by Lea Ann from Cooking on the Ranch
• Roasted Asparagus by Kim from Liv Life
• Strawberry Chia Jam w/ Chia Seed Pancakes by Heather from girlichef
• Strawberry Vanilla Scones by Christiane from Taking on Magazines
• Tomato Herb Compound Butter by Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Turkey Joes by Anna from Anna Dishes

If you'd like to stalk Christiane online, you can find her here:

Facebook     Twitter      Pinterest

Smothered Pork Chops with Potatoes

We have a game in my family that my mother instigated.  (And now you’ll know what a food obsessed family I come from.)  It began as a way to pass time on road trips but now and again it comes up in different settings or if a new person wants to join the discussion.  It’s a simple question:  If you knew you were dying, let’s say you are on death row, what would your final meal request be?  The rules are few.  1.  Money is no object.  2.  It doesn’t have to be a full meal.  You want to eat just ice cream?  No problem.  And  3.  You can order whatever you want, in whatever quantities, as long as you don’t list everything you’ve ever liked.  Try to narrow it down in the interest of discussion.

The rest of us change our minds regularly but my mother always has the same answer:  Potatoes.  Creamed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, hash browns, baked potatoes, baby new potatoes with butter and green onions, home fries, you get the picture.  The woman likes potatoes.  The funny thing is, whenever I am home or she is visiting, she doesn’t ask for potatoes.  She asks me to make smothered pork chops.  I made these a while back, unfortunately when my mom wasn’t with me, but I thought of her the whole time.  Smothered pork chops?  Check.  POTATOES?  Check.  I think she’d love this.  Maybe even for a final meal.

As it happens, right now, I am on a two-week holiday with my lovely mother.  And since today is Mothers’ Day, I thought this would be an appropriate time to post this dish.

What would your mother choose for her final meal?  What would you choose?  Discuss.

Ingredients for two people – you and Mom?  Or this is easily doubled or trebled.
2 thick pork chops (and if you are cooking for my mother, the fat around the rim is essential)
Olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper
1 large onion
5-6 medium new potatoes

Method
If your pork chops have the rim of fat with skin on the outside, cut through this in several places to stop the chops from curling up as you cook them.  It’s really hard to brown a curled chop evenly.

Sprinkle your chops liberally with salt and pepper.

Drizzle a little olive oil in your very hot pan and brown the chops well on each side.  According to my photo details, that took about four minutes for each side.

Meanwhile, peel and slice your onion thinly.

After the chops are browned on both sides, cover them with the sliced onions and add in just enough water to come up the sides of the chops.

Cover and cook for about 45- 50 minutes, checking and turning occasionally and adding a little bit more water if the pan looks like it's drying out.

Pork chops are funny.  You can either cook them till they are just done and they’ll be moist.  Or you can cook the bejezus out of them and they will be moist.  Anything in between and you will need a lot of gravy because the meat will be dry.  Smothering falls under method number two.  I thought it was a common term and way of cooking but I just looked it up and several sites, including Wikipedia,  say it is a Cajun or Creole method.  So I come by it honestly.  I thought everyone’s grandmother smothered everything. Who knew?

Now you can slice your potatoes (about 1/4 inch or 1/2 centimeter thick) and add them to the pan in an even layer.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and put the lid back on.

Cook until the potatoes are fork tender and the pork chops get a little sticky underneath but be careful not to let them burn.  You can add a little more water if you need to.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve along side some steamed vegetables or salad.

Enjoy!

And Happy Mothers’ Day to you and/or your mother!

If I don’t answer comments right away, please know that I am still delighted when you leave them and will respond as soon as I have internet access again.