Mustard Pork Chops
A popular bistro dish. The mustard mellows as it cooks and when blended with cream, the effect is delicious.
Mustard Pork Chops
Recipe courtesy of Nigella Lawson
2 pork chops, about 1-pound total weight
2 teaspoons infused oil
1/2 cup hard cider
1 tablespoon grain mustard
1/3 cup heavy cream
I love the old French favourites, the sorts that evoke not the supercilious waiter and theatrically removed silvered dome of the big name restaurants, but rather the small town bistro, all warm wood and rough red.
This is possibly the easiest route to a proper, filling and yet strangely delicate dinner. The pork is cooked for just enough time to take away pinkness but ensure tenderness within, and gloriously scorched without. The mustard, cider and cream add comfort and piquancy. To soak up the gorgeous juices, and to serve as a fantastically quicktime potato substitute, I serve up gnocchi alongside. You could always add a little lemony fennel, sliced thinly, or a green salad if you're in the mood.
Cut the fat or rind off the chops, and then bash them briefly but brutally with a rolling pin between 2 pieces of cling film/plastic wrap to make them thinner.
Heat the oil in a pan, and then cook the chops over a moderately-high heat for about 5 minutes a side. Remove them to a warmed plate.
Pour the cider into the pan, still over the heat, to deglaze the pan. Let it bubble away for a minute or so then add the mustard and stir in the cream.
Let the sauce continue cooking for a few minutes before pouring over each plated pork chop. If you're having gnocchi with, make sure you turn them in the pan to absorb any spare juices before adding them to your plates.
2 servings
Pork chops with mustard-cream sauce
from http://ckenb.blogspot.com/
This sauce is good with chicken, veal, or steak too. And it's nothing if not simple. This is a classic French recipe and I remember learning how to make it back in the late 1970s.
First, a word about pork chops. Too often, in American, pork chops are cooked dry. Just throw them in the pan and fry them. When they're browned, they're done. Wrong! What you do is brown the chops — with some onions, for example — and when they are done you add about ½ cup of water or, better, white wine, to the pan. Cover it and continue cooking the chops on low heat on top of the stove, or in a 325ºF oven, for 10 to 15 minutes. Then they're ready.
To make the mustardy cream sauce, take the pork chops out of the pan and set them aside in a warm place (a warm oven, say). Into the pan, with the juice left there from braising the chops and onions, add, oh, half a cup of cream. Or more, depending on how many chops you're making. French crême fraîche is best, but whipping or heavy U.S. cream is okay too.
Stir the cream until it is hot and starting to bubble. Salt and pepper it. And then stir in 2 or 3 tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Experiment and taste to get the amount you like. It doesn't have to be a very spicy-hot mustard, because as soon as you heat mustard up the spicy hotness goes out of it. The last time I made this sauce I used grainy old-fashioned French mustard — called moutarde à l'ancienne or moutarde de Meaux (a town east of Paris). The little bits of mustard seed give the sauce a nice look.
Put the pork chops (or chicken, or steak) back in the pan when the sauce is blended and hot. Turn them over in it. Then serve them. Put the sauce in a bowl or gravy boat and serve it alongside. It'll be good on potatoes or other vegetables, such as fried green tomatoes or green beans or mashed potatoes. And it's good when you sop it up with a piece of French bread too.
