[Smashy the Hammer] [An Aspiring Luddite]
I carry no phone
An aspiring Luddite
In a wired world.
Mastodon Verification Link
[Jeff Berry]
Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Smothered Chops
08 March 2014
[Smothered Chops]

Chops can be a bit tricky to deal with, I find. Grilling them, which works well, is not always an option, and pan-frying can be problematical. If the chops are thick, it can be difficult to get them cooked all the way through without doing violence to the exterior, and trying to slow the process down can result in toughness. The solution, rather obviously, is not to pan-fry chops unless they are quite thin. Thus opens the wonderful world of the baked chop.

The main thing to be wary of when baking chops is the danger of dryness. If the chops are lean, some way of ameliorating the drying effect of the longer cooking time is called for. I've had success with simply putting a bit of bacon on top to keep the meat lubricated as it cooks, but there are other options, as well. For instance, you can punt to a braise, which is what I've done with the smothered chops below.

I had some lovely goat chops that I wanted to cook, and goat is pretty lean to start with, so this seemed like an excellent treatment for them. (And so it was.) However, the same recipe works perfectly well for pork chops, and would probably work well for many other cuts of meat that don't require the long, slow braising of, say, oxtails.

These chops, by the way and except in the picture at the top, are saddle chops, or what is sometimes called a 'Barnsley chop.' I first ran across these at Keene's Chop House in NYC, where they use it for their mutton chops - or at least they used to. I like the look of them, and if you're dealing with a smallish animal like a lamb or a goat, they're a good size for a single serving, as opposed to a 'regular' chop which is often not quite big enough. [Lots of pictures]

Smothered Chops

Put an oven-safe skillet or casserole on the stove over medium heat, and add a splash of olive oil. Start the oven pre-heating to around 165C/325F. Slice the onion into thinnish semi-circles. Toss it into the casserole. Slice the garlic and add it as well. Season your chops with salt and pepper. (As a side note, as you can see, I usually put my meat on the upended casserole lid for the seasoning. It keeps me from dirtying another dish.) Move the onions and garlic, which should have sweated down a bit, to one side, and add the chops. While the down-side browns, season the tops. After a minute or two, flip them and let them brown on the other side. While they are starting to brown, move the onions and garlic on top of them. After a couple of minutes, add the tomatoes on top of everything, cover and put in the oven. Go away for half an hour to forty-five minutes.

That's it really. We served them with mashed potatoes and either roasted sprouts or steamed broccoli. They were moist and tender, and the character of the chop wasn't overwhelmed by the smothering sauce - delicious.


© 2014 Jeff Berry
The Aspiring Luddite