Pork Chops

Checking out restaurant menus online is a recently developed hobby of mine. One site which I like a lot is www.tkrg.com. It's the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, which includes a place called The French Laundry in Napa Valley. This guy is a culinary god according to chefs on Food Network and Wikipedia - and hopefully one day I'll have a chance to try out his $200 tasting menu which changes each day at the French Laundry.

Now on to my own cooking. After realizing that the cheese I like so much in the Pasta Bowl's spinach chicken salad is goat cheese - I decided to buy some at Costco, along with some pork loin chops. Here's what I did with it:


The pork loin chops I marinated for a couple hours in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, honey, and Coca Cola. I've read that aside from its sweetness, Coke works well in certain marinades because the carbamic acid in it tenderizes meat. The pork chops were cooked in a pan over the stove top four minutes on each side to brown and caramelize, and then the marinade was added and the chops simmered for 20 minutes until the marinade reduced by about half.

The salad is a mix of asparagus, cherry tomatoes, red onion, and apples tossed in olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, and garlic that was sauteed briefly.

The goat cheese I piled on top of a thick slice of apple, and baked in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes until it browned and was warmed all the way through. I also added honey, paprika, black pepper, and lemon zest to the cheese before baking.

This dish was probably the best one I've blogged about so far. Balsamic vinegar and honey work together beautifully, and the goat cheese on top of the apple was awesome. There was actually a very fluid progression of flavors when you had a piece of pork with some veggies and goat cheese. Every element in the dish worked together. I do wish though that the marinade had reduced in further to create a glaze, and that I hadn't cooked the apples for the same amount of time as the asparagus and tomatoes. I'm not sure the Coke added much to the tenderness of the meat, and its flavor was very subtle - taking a backseat to the sweet tartness of the vinegar and the richness of the honey.

The picture above isn't the greatest, but I love the color of cherry tomatoes. Kind of like I love the color of bright red hot chili peppers. I also love the color of yellow bell peppers. Hmm...