27. Smothered Pork Chops

Date Cooked: October 7th, 2008
Page: 462
Rating: B+

Ahhh… another pork dish. This dish went smoothly and I would say was definitely the beginning of a shift in my cooking. I settled on this recipe since I had all the ingredients and wanted to use the pork chops I had in the freezer, plus it had bacon and that is just a sure sign of a great recipe.

Let us begin with this wonderful tale of smothered pork chops. I’ll start at smothered. That is a word which invokes one thing in my mind. A pillow pressed against the face of a sleeping individual. I don’t want you to think I am some creepy individual but I can’t say I have heard the word smothered used in many other contexts. Pretty much just the crime version. So I have only begun the recipe and I am already comparing it to a crime. The only crime here is me in the kitchen.

The dish starts out with cooking the bacon to render it down and crisp it up. This of course gets the whole kitchen smelling nicely of bacon. I’m thinking all recipes should start this way, even if they don’t use bacon. A little cooked bacon to snack on while cooking would be perfect right? I wonder if they sell bacon potpourri.

Once the bacon was done and set aside the pork chops where quickly sautéed until both sides were seared a nice golden brown. They were then set aside to rest while the remainder of the ingredients came together. The remainder of the ingredients where a lot of onions! I was thinking this recipe seemed really out of proportion until I realized it was written for four servings and I was cooking only two. So these two pork chops were absolutely going to be smothered… I’m trying to figure out a word which would raise smothered to a whole new horrific level but I just can’t, maybe it’s time to invest in a thesaurus, or therapy.

Once the onions were caramelized all the ingredients get put in the pan (except the bacon) and then you bury the pork chops under the onions and cover and cook. 30 minutes pass and the house is smelling good. The pork chops got plated on some rice and then covered in the sauce with a little bacon sprinkled on top. The picture shows what I think a little bacon is.

Rating: B+. These pork chops were really good and serving them on rice was a great choice since the sauce is quite delicious. My only complaint would be that the pork was a little overcooked and probably could have spent a little less time buried under the onions. Pork on pork will always be a winner.