Everyday Sadie

Recipe: Pork Chops with Marsala Pan Gravy

Pork Chops with Marsala Pan Gravy
If your household is anything like mine, you can probably relate to doing that endless dinner cycle of “chicken, chicken, beef, pasta, leftovers, chicken, chicken, oops we should eat some fish once in a while, chicken, beef, pasta, chicken.” If and when I make pork, it’s a fabulous (read: kitchen destructorama) affair of medallions and smoky whiskey sauce, or a loin roast, or BBQ pulled-pork. I don’t make a lot of pork chops because they always seem to sit limp and sad on the plate. Just pork chops. Ho-hum.

Hubs wanted pork chops, though. He must have been craving them, since he zombie-walked right to the pork counter in the grocery store when I’d sent him out for coffee fixins. When he returned, he laid down the flat of meat with a shy smile, and said, “These followed me home. Can you do something with them? Not fancy! Just a good ol’ pork-n-taters dinner.”

How can I say no to that?

So, don’t let the title fool you. Or the ingredients, for that matter. This is a not-fancy, rut defying, good old fashioned pork-n-taters dinner with just a hint of snazzed up to keep the ho-hum beastie at bay.  The “recipe” came together straight out of my head (I only wrote it down here, after the fact — seat of my pants, I tell ya!), and was based entirely on things I already had in the pantry and fridge… Er, plus the pork chops that had magically leapt into Hubs’ shopping basket, of course.

Ready? Go!

Ingredients

• 4 Pork Chops
• 1 medium Shallot, finely diced (or half of a very mild onion; Texas Sweet Yellow, Vidalia, or a plain white onion all work well, too)
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Dash or two of Poultry Seasoning
• 1/4t dried Thyme leaves (1/2t or so if you use fresh Thyme, chopped)
• 2T Unsalted Butter (you can use sweet cream/salted butter if that’s what’s in your fridge; just watch the salt you add later)
• 2T Extra Virgin Olive Oil, plus a bit for cooking
• 4T AP Flour
• 1/3C Marsala Wine (cooking sherry or a drinkable, off-the-shelf white wine would also do, but will change the flavor profile a bit)
• 2 14.5oz. cans Reduced Sodium Chicken Broth (less if you don’t like as much smothery gravy goodness as we do; see note at end)
• Lemon Juice (for drizzling)
• Option: 3lbs. Russet Potatoes, peeled, cubed, boiled, and mashed to your taste
• Option: Mixed Green Side Salad (veggies good, blah blah blah)

Directions

1. Rinse and pat dry your pork chops. Sprinkle both sides with salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. Yep. Poultry seasoning. In cooking, pork truly is “the other white meat”, and you treat it similarly to the way you treat chicken and turkey.
2. In a high-sided frying pan large enough to hold all 4 chops without crowding (I used my 13” fryer), dribble just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Set it over Med-High heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, carefully lay the chops in. You should be rewarded with a distinct “sizzle hiss” as each piece goes in; just watch for oil spitting. Reduce heat to Medium and leave the meat alone. Don’t fuss at it and don’t smoosh at it with your spatula. Just let it do its thing.
3. Note that cooking time will vary greatly depending on the thickness of your chops and whether or not they have the bone! Mine were no-frills, neither thick-cut nor thin, and were bone-in. The cheap stuff, yes! Exactly! So, if you’re using a couponer’s special pack of meat like mine, you’ll cook the chops on the first side for about 8 minutes, or until the meat has that perfect swirling pattern of deep golden brown. Flip and cook on the second side about 4 minutes (the pass on the first side actually cooked the meat 2/3 of the way through, so stay on your toes now). Remove cooked chops to a plate.
    
   Boneless loin chops will take less time, as will any thin-cut. Thick-cut bone-ins will take longer, and probably require backing off to a Medium-Low heat.
4. If you’re going to make mashed potatoes (that’s what the fluffy white deliciousness is in my picture), somewhere in here is the time to peel them, cube them (don’t stress out; I’m not going to sic Anne Burrell on you! Just a rough 3/4”-1” whack jobby with the knife is fine), and get them in the water and onto the stove. They’ll need to come up to a rolling boil and then stay boiling for a good 14-15 minutes. Time it out however it works best for you, or bribe a teenager to help while you move on to the gravy steps.
5. In the same pan you cooked the meat in, drizzle a little more oil (if needed), and drop your finely diced shallot.  Sprinkle with just the tiniest bit of salt (it’s about layers of flavor, y’all.  trust me on this one).  Sweat out over a Medium/Medium-Low heat until the shallot goes translucent.
6. Push shallot bits to one side of the pan, and add the 2T butter and 2T olive oil. When the butter begins to froth, add the flour and mix into a paste. Allow paste to cook out for about 1 minute. Add Marsala, and stir furiously to combine with the paste. When smooth, add both cans of broth, again stirring/whisking to break any lumps that might try to form, and be sure to pick up all the nice fond that formed on the bottom of the pan when you fried off the meat.
7. Reduce heat to a low, slow simmer. Salt and pepper to taste. Add your thyme. Return pork to pan.
8. Go make your salad and/or mash your taters. Go on, now. You can’t just sit down to a pile of meat like a bunch of cavemen, you goofball! You need something to go with it, and a salad will make your mom proud of you. I’ll wait.
9. In about 10 minutes, the gravy should have reduced a bit (not a ton), and thickened and tightened. Allowing the chops to come back to temp and then sit in the simmering gravy should have helped infuse the meat with flavor and tenderize it somewhat (particularly helpful trick if you are, indeed, using the cheap meat like I am).  Give the gravy a taste, and adjust salt and pepper accordingly.
10. Turn off heat under your meat-gravy pan. Drizzle with lemon juice (I use a squeezy bottle rather than fresh, but it’s probably a little less than the equivalent of half a small lemon’s worth of juice). Don’t add lemon with the heat going! It can easily and very quickly turn the juice bitter.

Yield: 4 portions of meat and lots of gravy (we like a lot of gravy here). If you made a 3# or, heck, a 5# sack of Russets, though, you should have plenty of potatoes and gravy for a “leftover surprise” or even a meatloaf dinner tomorrow. If you don’t like a lot of gravy, no probs!  Just cut the broth, wine, butter, oil, and flour all in half.