Ingredients
Brine
¼ cup salt
¼ cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp black pepper corn
1 Tbsp Old Bay seasoning
5 whole cloves
¼ cup orange juice
Ice and water
Apple Sauce
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
1 shallot, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 large apple cut into small dice
¼ cup chopped and toasted walnuts
Roasted Grapes
Bunch of grapes
Orange juice
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Twice baked potato
2 russet potatoes
Olive oil
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
¼ cup sour cream
2 Tsp chipotle powder
Salt and pepper to taste
For brine: place all ingredients except ice/water into a bowl and add enough hot water to cover. Mix until sugar and salt dissolves. Add ice and cold water. Place pork chops in brine, cover and place in refrigerator for at least 1 hour. 2-4 would be better.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Using a small pairing knife score out a top from the potato, but leave on when baking. Rub potato with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap in foil and bake in 350 oven for 45 min – 1 hour, or until done. In a mixing bowl add in ½ of the cheddar cheese, sour cream, chipotle powder, salt and pepper. Mix together. When potatoes are done carefully remove the top and scoop out inside of potato. Leave a little potato inside the skin for structure. Mash potatoes into cheese and sour cream mixture. Spoon mixture back into hollowed out potato skins. Top with remaining cheddar cheese and set aside.
In a small sauce pan reduce orange juice with salt and pepper. In an oven proof dish place grapes and top with olive oil, salt, pepper, and orange juice glaze.
Remove pork chops from brine and rinse thoroughly. Salt and pepper pork chops and cook in fry pan over medium-high heat in olive oil. 2-3 min per side for thin chops, 4-5 for thicker. Remove from pan when done and keep warm.
Place grapes and potatoes into the oven and bake 5-7 minutes.
While sides are baking add apple cider vinegar to fry pan to deglaze. Add butter, garlic and shallots and cook 1-2 minutes. Add brown sugar and apple, cook for 5-6 minutes or until apple softens. Use an immersion blender to chop up the mixture. Add in walnuts and stir to combine.
Place apple sauce mixture on plate and top with pork chop and a few roasted grapes. Spoon grape liquid from baking dish over top of pork chop. Serve with more grapes and the twice baked potato.
After Dinner Thoughts:
There’s nothing better than pairing pork chops with fruit. Apple sauce is of course the traditional choice, but I find the store bought stuff to be a bit bland. And I’m not a huge apple sauce eater, so making jars of my own isn’t a worthwhile use of time. Instead I opt for this quick pan sauce version that I find to be superior to most apple sauce I’ve tried. It’s thick and chunky with a little sweetness and some zing from the garlic. The walnuts add a nice texture contrast.
This is a basic meat and potatoes type of dish, which goes over well in our house. It’s also the end of the week when we’ve yet to go shopping. That’s what I like about this classic American pairing of foods. Most people in the world have a few potatoes and some sort of meat in their refrigerator. Spicing things up with a new sauce or accompaniment keeps the meat and potato dinner from ever getting stale.
The grapes were a nice surprise. This past week the local market had some especially large and juicy grapes for sale and I just wanted to try something I’d never done. Being a firm fruit I felt they’d hold up to the baking process, and I was right. I added the orange juice glaze as a “just in case” measure, and it also provided a very nice sauce to top off the pork chops with. The grapes themselves burst with juicy flavor and were quite surprising in the subtle changes to flavor.
Final Thoughts:
The only thing new for me here is the grapes, and I look forward to working with baked grapes many times in the future.
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