Pork Chops and Braised Red Cabbage

                             Ingredients for Braised Red Cabbage

                                                                                                     Red cabbage, apples and sage

                                 Red Braised Cabbage
















                                                                                                         Ingredients for Pork Chops
                                                           



 Browning pork chops in butter

                                                                                        Stirring butter, wine, mustard, broth and cream

    Pork Chops in Mustard Cream Sauce
                                                                                 

                                                                                                Pork Chop and Braised Red Cabbage

I know this sounds Austrian-German but I found it in my French cookbook and figured I wanted to try it.

 

Pork Chops with Braised Red Cabbage

Ingredients:

Braised Red Cabbage

2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 small red cabbage, shredded

1 dessert apple, peeled and sliced

1/3 cup red wine

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 tablespoon finely chopped sage

 

Pork Chops

1 tablespoon butter

(4) 7-oz. pork chops, trimmed

1/3 cup white wine

1 2/3 cups chicken broth

3 tablespoons heavy cream

1 ½ tablespoons Dijon mustard

4 sage leaves

 

1.       To braise the cabbage, put the clarified butter in a large saucepan, add the onion and garlic and cook until softened but not browned.  Add the cabbage, apple, wine, vinegar, cloves and sage and season with salt and pepper.  Cover the pan and cook for 30 minutes over very low heat.  Uncover the pan and cook, stirring, for a further 5 minutes to evaporate any liquid.

2.       Meanwhile, heat the clarified butter in a frying pan; season the chops well on both sides.  Add the wine and stock, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the pork is tender.

3.       Remove the chops from the frying pan and strain the liquid.  Return the liquid to the pan, bring to a boil and cook until reduced by two-thirds.  Add the cream and mustard and stir over very low heat without allowing it to boil, until the sauce has thickened slightly.  Pour over the pork chops and garnish with sage.  Serve with the red cabbage.

**********************

The original recipe called for clarified butter which enables you to cook it at high temperatures without burning.  You can deal with this in one of three ways:  1) clarify the butter yourself by skimming the fat off while heating in a pan; 2) buy it (ghee in Indian grocery stores); or, 3) forget about it and just use regular butter.  Just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn.

The braised red cabbage is of course reminiscent of sauerkraut but it was more sweet than sour.  Sautéing it in butter removed any trace of bitterness from the cabbage, and added silkiness.  Although it was shredded, there was texture and a little of bite.  It was also very pretty next to the pork chop.

The pork chops were very tender.  Some people may be put off by the cream sauce but it really was just a nice touch.  It wasn’t too creamy or heavy, and the butter, mustard, wine, broth and cream blended so well together my family could not figure out what was in the sauce!  My daughter who is a little finicky even dipped her bread in the extra sauce. 

Overall, these two dishes were excellent and will definitely be seen on our table again!  So, how do you cook your pork chops?