Braised Pork Chops with Green Apple & Mustard Gravy.

It’s been one of those days again where I find myself scratching my head on the subject of dinner : What on earth do I cook?!

We had lamb on Saturday, Asian takeaway on Sunday, chicken on Monday … and now its Tuesday and already I have run out of ideas. If I had it my way I would have chicken again coz I love it, but I live with a finicky eater, plus he’s an Aussie who likes his red meat. If I were to have chicken on the menu 3x a week he’d be reaching for the box of cereal in lieu of dinner (*grumble grumble). He doesn’t do salads either.

So I scoured the meat section of my local supermarket and came across some lovely looking pork chops. Mom used to batter and fry ’em but I look at my stove and cannot fathom cleaning up all the grease splatters and stains. Did I mention I hate cleaning? So I went with the braise method ~ it produces a way yummier piece of meat anyway. Soft and succulent meat that’s easy to cut with a fork, accompanied by a slightly fruity gravy made with the help of an immersion blender. I’d say 60% of this recipe was made up as I went along but a few principles to browning and braising have come from countless hours of watching Marco Pierre White videos.

Pork just goes so well with apples for some reason … and stone fruits like plums, apricots and prunes. I have no idea why; I just eat it all up without asking too many questions. One of my favourite pork meals would have to be a classic roast with all the trimmings, English style of course : roast pork, crispy roast potatoes, brussle sprouts, gravy and apple sauce. I used to live not too far from a pub in North Melbourne that made excellent roast dinners for their Sunday menu. The portions were very generous too I might add. Heavenly!

So back to my pork chop dinner … I salted and sprinkled them with paprika (for colour), and then dusted them lightly in plain flour. Helps with the browning according to Marco.

Then brown them in a hot pan for approx 5 mins per side to get a nice crust going. Remember to not overcrowd the pan or fiddle with the meat once it’s in … another of Marco’s wise words.

Once you have cooked all pieces of meat, transfer them to a roasting pan. Save the fat drippings to fry up the onions, garlic and celery.

Slice up a couple of onions, a stick of celery and two cloves of garlic. Sweat on low heat in the same pan that you browned the meat in, seasoning with salt and pepper. Sweating on low helps to remove excess water from the onions and intensifies their flavour. Then deglaze the pan with apple cider … or in my case, since I had none on me, I used some Reisling. I suppose any fruity white would compliment this dish so go with what you have on-hand. About a cup would suffice.

Once the wine is in it needs to reduce and cook off the alcohol. You can add in the diced green apples, Dijon mustard and some dried thyme to the sauce at this stage. When the sauce has reduced by half, pour in about half a cup of chicken broth. Then take it off the flame and pour everything over the pork in the roasting pan, cover with foil and whack in a 160ºC oven for about 90 minutes.

Once time is up remove the meat to a holding tray and transfer the sauce and all the onions, celery and apples into a bowl. Use an immersion blender to blitz everything to a pulp, and then strain it back into a saucepan. Discard any bits of onion fibres and chunks of celery. Turn on the heat to low and taste your gravy. If it needs extra broth or seasonings, more Dijon mustard perhaps … adjust it here. Keep the heat on and reduce the sauce to intensify it’s flavour. When it’s done, take it off the heat and whisk in the cold butter.

And now you have made yourself a wonderful gravy to go with the scrumptious pork chops. I would have had mine plated with a side of chunky apple sauce but clever me, I forgot to pick a jar up at the store. So I had to settle for simple greens, tomatoes and some beans. The pork was delicious tho …. sooooo tender.