Apple Brandy Pork Chops & Zesty Green Beans
Hello, my name is Joe, and I’m an addict. I’m addicted to cookbooks. No, really, I am. There are boxes of them in the upstairs of our house. Our home office has a bookcase full of them. Whenever the Payaso and I go to a bookstore, it’s like I’m drawn to the cookbook section. I’m sure the Payaso rolls his eyes every time I head to that particular section, but yet he indulges me; I’m a lucky gringo. One of the first presents the Payaso gave me was a cookbook titled The California Heritage Cookbook written by the Junior League of Pasadena. In California, we lived about 45 minutes from Napa, and we would often take road trips to spend a sunny afternoon going from winery to winery. When I wasn’t looking, the Payaso bought this book and later surprised me with it. Looking out my window now, and seeing snow makes me long for those California weekends. I also love looking at recipes online, but there’s just something calming about flipping through the pages of a cookbook to find inspiration. As I was thinking about recipes for this week, I remembered this cookbook and realized that while I had thumbed through it many times, I had never cooked from it. Its day had finally come! The recipes in this post were inspired, okay adapted, by two recipes I found in the cookbook the Payaso gave me so many years ago.
Apple Brandy Pork Chops
Ingredients:
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 4 loin pork chops (3/4 – 1″ thick)
- 8 ounces Gruyere cheese
- 1/4 cup coarse mustard
- 3/4 cup heavy cream, divided
- 1/2 cup apple brandy
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Generously salt and pepper both sides of pork chops. (psst…make it rain!)
- Melt butter in a saute pan. Add pork chops and brown for approximately 5 minutes on each side.
- Transfer browned pork chops into a baking dish, cover with foil and bake for approximately 45 minutes.
- Meanwhile, mix Gruyere cheese, 1/4 cup coarse mustard and 1/4 cup heavy cream together in a bowl.
- Once pork chops reach internal temperature of 145 degrees, remove from oven and uncover. Turn broiler in oven to high.
- Top each pork chop with cheese mixture and place under broiler until cheese is brown and bubbly.
- Remove pork chops from under broiler, cover with foil and let rest.
- In the saute pan used to brown pork chops, add heavy cream and brandy. Bring to a boil and then simmer for approximately 4 minutes until the sauce is reduced to by about half. You’ll want to stir constantly while this reduces.
- Plate pork chops and drizzle with apple brandy sauce.
The original recipe calls for Calvados, but we didn’t have any on hand, and I wasn’t going to spend $40 for a bottle to use only 1/2 cup in this recipe Why not use apple brandy I thought? I have vague memories of pork chops being served with applesauce growing up so I felt good that the apple brandy would pair well with the pork chops. Let’s just say that the apple brandy was used in the recipe, but also found its way into some mason jars for the Payaso and I to sip on throughout the night; so refreshing!
Gringo: “Do you think that’s too much cheese for those pork chops?”
Payaso: “There are pork chops in that dish?”
It’s true, it really does seem like a lot of cheese to put on top of the pork chops, but goodness, it’s all worth it. Once that cheese gets broiled and melts, something magical happens. The tang of the mustard with the richness of the cream will create an explosion of flavor in your mouth. But wait for it…when they meet the apple brandy sauce, holy guacamole! The flavors are out of this world. This meal really was a show stopper. Huge flavors that all worked so well together (how many different ways can I say this?). And those zesty green beans, oh golly…
Zesty Green Beans
Ingredients:
- 1 pound fresh green beans
- 6 slices bacon
- 1 small onion, small diced
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
Directions:
- Bring a pot of well salted water to a boil. Prepare a separate bowl and fill with ice cubes and water.
- Trim ends from green beans and add to boiling water. Cook for 5-7 minutes.
- Blanche the green beans by straining and adding them to bowl of ice water.
- Meanwhile, cut the bacon into small pieces and fry over medium heat in a saute pan.
- Remove the bacon, leaving the grease and saute onions until translucent (approximately 5 minutes).
- Remove all but about two tablespoons of the bacon grease from pan. Add cider vinegar, sugar and bacon to pan.
- Bring the heat to high and boil for about 2 minutes. Return heat to medium.
- Strain green beans from water bath, and add to vinegar and bacon mixture.
- Toss beans to coat in vinegar mixture and until heated throughout (approximately 3-5 minutes).
The pork chops are extremely rich with all that glorious cheese and decadent cream, and the acid from the green beans cuts through the richness perfectly. I think this is one side dish I’ll be making a lot because both the Payaso and I really, really enjoyed it. It’s a dinner that you can have on the table within the hour and would be great to serve not only to your family, but guests. We give it four thumbs up!
I love you, Payaso. Thank you for the cookbook; it’s a gift that keeps giving. Muah!