Pork Chops Braised in Fresh Tomato Sauce
This dish is adapted from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and consists of pork chops braised in a fresh tomato sauce. This dish has been on many a French dinner table or found quite often on bistros menus. It’s not necessarily new but it’s good and that’s what most important. So I doff my hat with respect. Merci Monsieur Robert!
Ingredients
(Serves 6)
6 pork chops cut about 1 inch thick
3 tbl cooking oil
2 tsp butter
1 cup minced yellow onion
1 tbl flour
1 pound ripe garden tomatoes peeled seeded and chopped (or the canned plum variety)
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of black pepper
generous pinch thyme
pinch red pepper flakes (add more or less depending on your tolerance level for heat, mine is high!)
1 large clove garlic, mashed
1 cup garden variety white wine
1/2 cup beef stock
1 -2 tsp tomato paste
1 -2 tsp chopped parsley
Preparation
Fill one (or two) glasses of wine and rest on kitchen counter
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Heat the oil in a skillet over medium low heat. Dry the pork chops and season both sides with kosher or sea salt and coarse black pepper. Add the chops to the skillet and brown both sides, about 2 minutes for a 4 ounce chop. Remove to a side dish or casserole, removing most of the rendered fat from the skillet.
Add the onions and the butter to the skillet and slowly cook the onions (10 minutes) until it they are soft and translucent, not colored (sweat the onion). Add in the flour and stir over low heat until combined with the fat. Stir in the tomatoes, salt, pepper, thyme, red pepper flakes, and garlic. Cover and cook slowly for 5 minutes.
Stir together beef stock, white wine, and tomato paste. Add to skillet and simmer for 10 minutes. Add more tomato paste as needed for flavor
Baste the chops with the sauce. Cover the dish and place and bring to a simmer on the stove. Then set in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the chops are well done (170 degrees internal temperature).
Serving Suggestions
1. Add par-boiled yellow or red small potatoes to the pan before putting in the oven.
2. In a pan, the sliced red potatoes are sautéed in butter with parsley and maybe a little more garlic and basil. They are then introduced to the pork anxiously waiting alone on the plate.