It's time for another recipe. Although I've really cut down on eating meat, I still like to take the time to grill up a nice cut on the weekends. This weekend I pulled two boneless pork loin chops out of the freezer and began to consider how I would prepare them.
If you have a good cut of meat, you can never go wrong with salt, pepper, a bit of olive oil, and a well seasoned gas grill. And these two chops were almost half an inch thick--perfect for grilling.
But I had something more elaborate in mind. In particular, I wanted to use some of the pecan halves I bought from the nut and seed guy in the commissary a couple of weeks ago. Pecans are imported, of course, and extremely expensive no matter what time of the year you buy them, often costing USD 30 or more per kilo.
But I do get tired of almonds and pistachios and I don't care for walnuts all that much, and sometimes I get a hankering for pecans. As a result, there was half a kilo of pecans sitting in my fridge.
Pecan-crusted grilled chops sounded like just the thing but I hadn't tried this particular preparation technique before and wondered how to get the nuts to stick to the chops.
As usual, I turned to The Joy of Cooking for inspiration. There I found a recipe for a yogurt-based marinade that I thought would work well. Here is my variation on their recipe.
Grill slowly on a piece of foil.
The pork came out perfect: evenly cooked and incredibly moist, and studded with pecan bits.
I served the chops with frozen spinach, which after I thawed by microwaving, I sauteed in butter and olive oil with some salt. Yeah, I know, frozen vegetables aren't my first choice but I always keep some around since fresh spinach is hard to come by here.
If you have a good cut of meat, you can never go wrong with salt, pepper, a bit of olive oil, and a well seasoned gas grill. And these two chops were almost half an inch thick--perfect for grilling.
But I had something more elaborate in mind. In particular, I wanted to use some of the pecan halves I bought from the nut and seed guy in the commissary a couple of weeks ago. Pecans are imported, of course, and extremely expensive no matter what time of the year you buy them, often costing USD 30 or more per kilo.
But I do get tired of almonds and pistachios and I don't care for walnuts all that much, and sometimes I get a hankering for pecans. As a result, there was half a kilo of pecans sitting in my fridge.
Pecan-crusted grilled chops sounded like just the thing but I hadn't tried this particular preparation technique before and wondered how to get the nuts to stick to the chops.
As usual, I turned to The Joy of Cooking for inspiration. There I found a recipe for a yogurt-based marinade that I thought would work well. Here is my variation on their recipe.
- 8 oz plain unsweetened yogurt
- 2 Tbsp yellow mustard (Dijon would work great but I couldn't find any in the commissary; the original recipe called for powdered mustard but I thought that regular mustard would work fine and it did)
- 2 to 3 Tbsp honey (this is my addition; I thought it would make a nice counterpoint to the mustard and mesh well with the pecans; plus sugar in a marinade tends to make a glaze when grilled, which I thought would help keep the pecans stuck to the meat)
- 3 lg cloves garlic peeled and minced
- 1/2 cup pecan halves chopped
Grill slowly on a piece of foil.
The pork came out perfect: evenly cooked and incredibly moist, and studded with pecan bits.
I served the chops with frozen spinach, which after I thawed by microwaving, I sauteed in butter and olive oil with some salt. Yeah, I know, frozen vegetables aren't my first choice but I always keep some around since fresh spinach is hard to come by here.
1 comment:
I am always looking for kitchen inspiration, and this sounds great, if only the spouse and teen hadn't gone veg on me. (Traitors.)
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