You know when you want a nice tasty meal but you have neither the inclination nor the motivation to flit about the kitchen preparing one? Well that’s been us in the two weeks since Christmas. New Year has come and gone and we’re still chowing down on leftovers and assorted nibbles. We haven’t sat down to a proper meal for days. Finally the remains of the stuffing and pigs in blankets have gone, we can see the back of the fridge, vegetables are running low or no longer fit for human consumption, the freezer is devoid of all our “ready meals”; all eaten in the run up to the festive season; and I’m not sure what meat we have left. I was planning on Toad In The Hole since I was sure I’d espied some sausages in the freezer the other day but could I spot them now? I had a bit of a rummage; which is a bit like playing Jenga since the freezer is the tall, ultra slim side of an American style fridge/freezer; but those sausages remained elusive. I was just trying to stuff everything back into the freezer Tetris fashion when Jenga took over as I dislodged a couple of items and a pack of pork chops came tumbling out. Oh well, pork chops it was then. Since we’d had pasta the previous day my go to recipe Pork Modena Style was out. I took a quick squizz through my recipes to see what I could rustle up. Many moons ago, back when I was only a fledgling domestic goddess, I had found a recipe for pork chops with garlic and rosemary to take advantage of freshly picked rosemary from the garden. I looked it up but it didn’t seem as inspiring as I remembered. I then DuckDuckGo-ed recipes for garlic and rosemary sauce. As ever there were a plethora of fancy recipes using cream/sour cream/crème fresh, non of which I had and involved all sorts of complicated preparations. And anyone who knows me knows I do not do complicated. I finally found one that looked simple, had a few basic ingredients and didn’t take twice as long to make than the rest of the meal. It was so easy to make, I was even tempted to forego the strict weighing out and measuring I usually do. Although the original recipe was to serve with juicy steaks, with a couple of substitutions thrown in along the way it was easily adapted for the pork by using a chicken stock cube rather than beef to give a lighter taste and a couple of teaspoons of garlic salt since I had run out of fresh. As it is a rosemary sauce it did require quite a lot of rosemary. The main problem with cooking with our homegrown rosemary is that Paul, although he likes the taste, doesn’t like all those spiky little leaves floating around in his dinner. I have tried chopping them and crushing them but I’ve never got it fine enough to stop him moaning. This time, after stripping the leaves from the stem I decided to try giving them a whizz in the blender. You may be surprised that I have never tried this before but my blender has a big two litre jug which seems a bit excessive for a couple of sprigs of rosemary; unlike my first ever Moulinex which had both a large jug and a small grinder. To my surprise it worked exceedingly well. Perfectly ground rosemary in seconds. He still had a moan though as some of the spikes from the sprig I threw in with the pork chops had shed a few which ended up on his plate. My thoughts then turned to what I would serve with the pork chops. As I said earlier my choice of vegetables was limited to a bag of carrots, a few sprouts, a tiny homegrown turnip and a couple of going limp courgettes. I decided to get a little fancy and do julienne carrots and spiralised courgette along with mashed potato. After boiling them however I chose to sauté them in the fat left over from cooking the pork chops. And very tasty it was too.
For the pork chops
- Two pork loin chops
- 2 tbs flour
- 2 tbs of butter
- Sprig of rosemary
For the sauce
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 2 tbs fresh rosemary
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tbs flour
- 1 tbs butter
- 200ml stock
- Place the flour in a bowl and coat the pork chops
- Melt the butter in a large frying pan
- Add the the sprig of rosemary
- Add the pork chops and brown on both sides
- Lower the heat and allow the pork chops to cook through
Whilst the pork chops are cooking prepare the sauce
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat
- Add the chopped onions and sauté until translucent
- Add the garlic, rosemary and lemon juice and mix well
- Add half the stock and allow to simmer
- Mix the flour well into the remaining broth and add to the pan
- Keep stirring until the sauce thickens.
- Spoon the sauce over the pork chops and serve with fresh vegetables and sautéd potatoes.