Sautéing pork chops is easy. Pan sauces are easy. Put the two together and you have an easy and delicious meal. That’s why it’s one of my favourites, time and again. Tonight, I decided that my sauce would be lime and white wine, with garlic and shallots.
setting the scene
It’s usually a good idea to do your prep work before you start cooking things, so let’s get that out of the way.
garlic mincers and good knife work are useful for this
Great, we’re on our way! First, heat up some olive oil in a pan. We’re browning meat, so get it nice and hot – medium-high at least. When you throw the meat in there, it should start sizzling quite nicely; if the oil starts to smoke before you add the meat, you may have waited too long.
this shot of raw meat goes out to my friend Steve
Let it sizzle until you get some nice browning, then flip it. It looks like I could have turned the heat up or left the chops a little longer before flipping them, but these look pretty decent.
this is what the sizzle looks like
Once both sides are looking nice and colourful, reduce the heat and add a generous portion of stock. We want to cook the meat through. Some people like their pork slightly rare, but you can get sick from eating undercooked pork, so be careful!
I used chicken stock for this
Once the meat is finished, remove it from the pan. An oven on very low (200 ºF at most) might be a good place to store it while you finish up the sauce. No matter where you decide to keep it, letting the meat rest for five minutes or so is definitely a good idea. At this point, I turned the heat back up a bit and added my shallot and garlic to the stock left in the pan. Be sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan to get all that flavour into your sauce.
getting close!
After the stock reduced a bit, I splashed some white wine in. I also added some capers at some point, but I don’t remember when exactly. When the sauce was almost done – after the wine had reduced somewhat and the consistency looked good to me – I squeezed my lime halves into it, too. (Careful; if you have any little cuts or nicks on your hands, this can be painful. If you don’t, you might discover one or two!) A little stirring and a minute later, I decided it was ready. I plated up the farfalle I’d been cooking on the side, put one of my pork chops on top, and spooned half of my sauce all over everything. The other half went in the fridge as leftovers along with the other pork chop.
yum!
I was too impatient to wait for everything, as you can see by the fact that the pork chop has already been cut into. I gotta work on my timing . . .
Hope you enjoyed this; I sure did! Be sure to leave a comment.
