from thursday april 26, 2012:
FEVER INDUCED SOY LEMON PORK CHOPS
A little backstory: I've had a pretty high fever (spiking at just over 105°F and even with an alternating tylenol/ibuprofen regimen I have only been able to get it down to around 102°F) going on 3 days now. Went to the doctor yesterday and got a wonderfully uncomfortable shot of penicillin in the ass for my very obvious (and very confirmed via rapid-strep test) Streptococcal pharyngitis.
Last night, as I was searching for something to make my throat feel less like Satan took a massive mexican food dump in it, I stumbled across some lovely looking pork chops that, according to their best by date, needed to be used. I decided, in a fever haze, to make a recipe that is quite easy and very delicious. So, donning the contagion mask I liberated from the hospital (I hate those things) and washing my hands thoroughly, I commenced with the preparation of the chops. Now, I decided to marinate overnight because they taste better that way, but you can cut that time down as long as you refrigerate for
AT LEAST 1 hour; do this only if you're a jackass.
INGREDIENTS:- PORK CHOPS!! (3 of them)
- 1/4 cup Soy Sauce (this can be a little on the salty side; you can add a bit of water to even things out)
- 1/3 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
- 3 Cloves Garlic (minced)
- 1 1/4 tablespoons Lemon Juice
- 1/4 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
- 1/3 teaspoon Olive Oil
- Onion (diced)
- Mushrooms
- Oregano (optional; just a pinch)
- ~1/4 teaspoon Ginger (optional; minced)
- Rice or Taters (prepared as you usually would)
DIRECTIONS:In a shallow dish, combine soy sauce, Worcesterhsiahrfoahfr Sauce, garlic, lemon juice, pepper, oil, your optional ginger and oregano, and you
can also add about half of that onion if you want. I added all of these things, but you can omit everything after the oil and it will still taste amazing.
Flop your chops around in your marinade to evenly coat them; it's okay to play with your food sometimes even in mommy always told you not to.
Cover that bitch up and stick in the refrigerator over night (or at least 1 hour if you're a jackass). As I said before, I did mine overnight because
I'm awesome like that.
NEXT DAY!!! And whee, I still have a fever so the title is still completely applicable! One with that horrible contagion mask again
and back to the grind stone...Mmmmm, look at dem der chops 'n onions; flavours all married, and such a happy couple!! Now this would be where you start to preheat your oven
to a toasty 375°F. Okay, so I placed my chops into a bigger baking dish and I removed most of the excess marinated and placed it aside because I
wants it and am gonna use it later.
Start some rice (if you decided on taters for mashing then you should probably have started them before pulling your chops out of the fridge) and let
it cook and do its thing. I'm using wild brown rice. Add butter, salt and whatever seasonings you want to your rice/water, bring to a boil then turn your
heat to low and let simmer until done.
Is your oven preheated? Assuming that it is up to temp it's time to place those delicious piggies in the oven; cook anywhere from 25-40 minutes
depending on how thick your chops are basting often with that marinade you should have set aside like I said to. My chops were to desired doneness
around the 30 minute mark. (One of these days my camera is gonna melt pulling a stunt like this)
You can also make a nice salad while your rice and your chops are cooking. I used a spinach spring mix and added cucumbers, red onion, and
Kalamata olives. Toss that salad, baby. Ooooh yeah!
Back to our main focus. At this point I'm about half way through my cook time and it's time to get some onions and mushrooms a sizzlin'. Get your
pan nice and hot, add some oil and toss in your onions and mushrooms, let 'em sizzled real good, we want the onions to caramelize and leave some
yummy stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan. A dash of garlic powder and black pepper and stir occasionally in between basting your pork chops. It
may seem like a lot of juggle at once but it's really not so bad.
My timer is going off; my chops are done and they are bubbling happily in that delicious marinade. Take those babies out of the oven, remove them
from the baking dish and place them in foil tents and let them rest, this will seal in all the juices and ensure that they remain nice and tender, AS THEY
SHOULD BE!! While your swine are resting we're going to deglaze our mushrooms and onions with some of the marinade from the dish we just pulled
out of the oven; you should have some good stuff stuck to the bottom of that pan by now and the marinade will help you pull that all up to make a scrumptious
mushroom topping for your chops, make sure you get all the onions from the baking dish into your mushroom pan as they are extra tasty from marinating
all night and then baking with your pork. Stir and scrape and stir some more, it's definitely worth it.
Remove your chops from their tents. I was finding it hard to breath at this point because of that stupid mask and the heat in the kitchen (not to mention
I was running at 103.6°F, time for some Tylenol). Anyway place the chops on some sort of 'fancy' dish or whatever and pour your mushroom glaze over
top (and then the rest of the juices/marinade left in your baking dish over that; as seen in the intro pic).
Toast up some rolls real quick-like too; rolls are nice. Warm, buttery, crusty rolls.
SERVE AND ENJOY!!And the fever dreams continue....