![]() Despite feeling kind of “grown-up” and “fancy”, this meal is actually pretty simple to make and comes together in less than 30 minutes! The sage reinforces that earthiness, and the cream gives the topping a really nice velvety finish. The onion helps keep things from going too sweet and fruity, and the mustard adds some interesting texture and a nice earthy vinegary bite. ![]() To add a little depth to the pork and apple combination, I deglazed the pan with white wine after searing the pork, sautéed the apples with some onions and mustard, and finished the the whole thing with some cream and fresh sage from our back yarden. Even thick cut chops will get dry and tough if overcooked. If you’re still scared and want to cook them to well done, remove them from the pan the second the meat reaches an internal temperature of 145 degrees. If you get your pan nice and screaming hot you only need to sear the chops for a few minutes on either side to get them perfectly cooked to medium well. I think pork chops on the bone tend to have the best flavor, and the thicker they’re cut the juicier they’re going to be when they’re finished cooking. On a side note, I might just need to plant some apple trees and buy a few pigs… This may have started because some farmers would feed old or rotten apples to their pigs, and some people say that a diet high in apples can actually flavor the meat. Before sugar was readily available to most people, fruit sweetened foods were usually served alongside or in combination with savory, and apples were a common way to add a touch of sweetness to pork dishes. People have actually been pairing pork with apples for centuries. I used to slather those suckers with mountains of applesauce, for the moisture as much as the flavor. I’ve been eating apples with pork for as long as I can remember, which probably stemmed from grandma’s well done chops. I know it’s super traditional and I’m not showing you anything you haven’t seen before, but hey, it’s friggin good! If it ain’t broke, I ain’t trying to fix it. Call me uninspired, but my favorite flavor to pair with pork is apple. While we’re on the topic of tasty pork, lets talk about how I like to eat a pork chop. Yay! We can finally eat tasty pork again! Thanks to modern farming, Trichinosis (the food borne illness commonly associated with pork), hasn’t been a concern for American eaters since the 1970s. In fact, the USDA even recently lowered their recommended internal cooking temperature for pork from 160 degrees to 145. Unless you caught your pig in the wild, the only thing you’re at risk of is eating a seriously tasty pork chop. It’s totally okay if you cook your pork to medium-well or even medium. I know it’s not your fault grandma! Damned conventional wisdom! Maybe this is why a lot of people think they don’t like pork? The only problem with that wisdom is that todays pork is bred to be so lean that cooking to well done produces a bone-dry chop that is, sorry grandma, pretty terrible. You were supposed to cook ’em through and then keep on going, just for good measure. The common conventional wisdom in my grandmother’s day was that if you saw even a tiny twinkle of pink in your pork you’d probably keel over dead on the spot. Grandma’s pork chops were usually cut thin and baked until well done. Shake n bake, of course, and of course I helped. When I was growing up my grandmother used to make us porkchops a lot. In the words of Homer Simpson, “Porkchops and bacon, my two favorite animals.” Give me a big thick juicy pork chop over a steak any day of the week. I’ve really always been a big fan of pork.
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