Saturday, September 5, 2015

Grilled Pork Chops with Sage and the Corn Debate

One of my favorite blogs to read is Ciao Chow Linda. I read her last post and there was an immediate connection. I had read the book that her blog post was based on. Provence 1979 by Luke Barr. The book is about James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Richard Olney, Simone Beck, and Judith Jones who find themselves together in the South of France. The conversations among this group were chronicled by M.F.K. Fisher in journals and letters—some of which were later discovered by Luke Barr, her great-nephew. This is a must read for anyone who loves food.
At the end of the post was the recipe for Côtes de porc grillées à la sauge, (Grilled pork chops with sage). I have a sage plant on our deck and have wanted to use some of it up rather than just drying all of it. This was perfect.
 
The original recipe is from "The Provence Cookbook", by Guy Gedda and Marie Pierre Moine

Ingredients-
2 large, thick pork chops
Fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 3/4 T. grainy Dijon mustard
2 tbsp olive oil
8 fresh sage leaves

Method-
Cut slits in the fat at regular intervals around the pork chops, and season lightly all over with salt and pepper.

In a small bowl, mix together the mustard and oil. Coarsely chop and stir in 6 of the sage leaves. Arrange the chops in a shallow dish and brush both sides with the mustard mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.

Before cooking, return the chops to room temperature.

Grill over indirect heat turning once, until cooked through but still juicy inside, about 15 minutes total, depending on the thickness.

Season with a little extra pepper and garnish each chop with a fresh chopped sage leaf.


  
Now about the corn. We buy our corn from Jake's Farm Stand. It is located on the Post Road in Madison from July until September. The corn is fantastic. It is so sweet and never varies. Today I was at Robert's buying the Pork Chops and they had corn from a local farm. I thought I would give it try. Just to see if Jake's was the best. Well, we could not eat it. It was mealy. Chris referred to it at "Cow Corn." It was just not as good as Jake's.


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I had some of the Farro and Zucchini Cakes that I made last week in the freezer so we had that as an additional side dish. They were better than the corn!

1 comment:

BumbleVee said...

If I ever try corn from Safeway... same thing. ugh.... but, if we buy it from the Taber farmers .. not too many miles from here is the best corn ever...and, they bring it into town for several weeks in the fall..... oh, wow... what great, sweet tasty corn!