This dish was a contender for Easter dinner but I made the mistake of making chicken and dumplings and alternate choice. As soon as the word "dumplings" left my mouth Jamie completely forgot about these pork chops. These pork chops are pretty dang good but they are not in the same league as Chicken and Dumplings. He even insisted that I "cheat" when making the chicken and dumplings by promising to pick up a rotisserie chicken this weekend at the grocery store! The man loves him some chicken and dumplings, weirdly over rice but that's another post that you should look forward to on Monday!
I found this recipe in the "Gracious Entertaining Cookbook presented by the Blue Flower Literary Club from Duncan, Lyman and Wellford, South Carolina. This cookbook has a lot of good stuff that I am going to try out soon, but the best part of this cookbook are the random quotations sprinkled throughout aimed at the literary minded. They quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson. By far my favorite quotation is this one: "A man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, and drink and be merry.- The Bible" Could the citation be anymore vague? "The Bible"!!! No reference to the book or the chapter or verse. Just "The Bible"! I will forgive the vagueness because these chops did not disappoint. They were perfectly moist and the pecans added a nice crunch to the chops that you don't get when you bake them. This is not your Mama's Shake and Bake:
Make the Chops:
Ingredients
2 slices whole wheat bread
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. celery salt ( I didn't have any so I subbed some Melvin's Rub. Honestly, who has celery salt hanging around?)
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup pecans
6 3/4 inch thick pork chops
2 large eggs beaten
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp. butter
What you do:
- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Combine the bread, pecans, dry mustard and spices in a food processor to a create crumb mixture
- Bread the pork chops!
- Flour
- Egg wash (2 eggs + 1/4 cup milk)
- Pecan crumbs
- Melt butter in frying pan and fry the chops for about 3 minutes on each side or until browned. After they are browned place the chops in a baking pan and bake for 15-20 minutes
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| Before |
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| After. I can't begin to tell you how awesome those pecans smell. YUM |
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| Breading station, ready to go! |
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| Ready for the frying pan |
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| Finished! |
Make the Sauce:
Ingredients:
1 cup chopped onion
1 tbs. caraway seeds
1 clove of garlic, minced
12 oz dark beer
1 17 oz can beef broth
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 tbs. honey
cornstarch
water
What you do:
- Mince garlic and the onion. In small sauce pan cook with olive olive and caraway seeds until they are softened.
- Add beef broth and beer and honey
- Bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes
- Add cornstarch and water until the sauce has the desired consistency.
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| Guinness and a super cute beer opener. Thanks Jo! |
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| Letting the sauce boil. Forgot to take the final shot-- but you get the point |
Served over mashed red potatoes. My recommendations for the sauce: pick a beer that you really like. We got the Guinness because it was the only dark beer that we could buy without getting a six pack. I don't drink beer enough to justify purchasing a six pack. Jamie loves Guinness (he claims it has something to do with being Irish) so he was smothering his potatoes with the sauce. The beer sauce is decidedly a grown up mashed potato gravy for sure!
While we're cleaning up after dinner Jamie asks, "what else can we pecan encrust?" This should be interesting...
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