Sometimes the sauce is even better than the meat!
Have you ever cooked a dish where the meat was just small, insignificant?
That is what happened: I arrived home, and the wife had bought some pork chops on sale at the local grocery store. On sale for 2.50$ a package of four. Great deal!
Not.
See, the pork chops were lucky if they were 1 cm thick. I had just shy of 500 grams of pork in the package to feed 2.5 people. Super.
Not to be put off by the challenge, I commenced searing those babies off, to find that they almost cooked all the way through. Why do those freaky stores do that? Seriously! 1 CM thick chops are like – they let the NOOB at the saw, and he fucked them up tried his best. Sold at a premium price… and they should be ashamed!
So, what is a chef to do about that? Do you think I could be beat by prosciutto-thin slices of pork? Hell no!
I took a shallot, sweated it up in the fond of the pork. (Absent of fat – I had to add a little of course!) In went quartered mushrooms, peppers. A sprig of thyme. Deglaze with red wine…
I added beef demiglace. Now my sauce alone was twice as expensive than the pork itself.
The pork went into the sauce, and into an oven for 30 minutes to braise in the goodness.
How did it turn out? As expected, the sauce was awesome. Mashed potatoes were awesome. The veggies were awesome.
The pork was pathetic. I have a question for those out there who are all gung-ho about portion sizing the size of a deck of cards. The piece was about that size, and it sucked rubber nipples was definitely lacking.
How do you live with your conscience after serving something so pitiful? Seriously, if I had company over, I would rather shoot myself than give that over. I would probably micro a bowl of leftover pasta, just to give a double portion to my guest. I did just that so my wife and son could eat.
So, today’s picture is of the real star of the show. A nice sauce you could take home to introduce your mamma to. Leave the pork behind for the dog, if he will eat it. (Mine also eats nails, drywall compound and broken tiles. He doesn’t count!)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
ROFL – my dog eats, well, it’s best left unsaid what he will eat. Drywall, yes, probably.
Meat the size of a deck of cards – *snort* – yeah, right.. Your sauce sounds wonderful, though!
@Jan – I KNOW exactly what you mean. I have to offer that “other” thing up as a healthy alternative to the other destructive things my dog eats.