Pork chops with sage (costolette di maiale con salvia)
Posted on Mar 4, 2009 08:52:12 PM
Time for pork chops. Pork meat from time to time is a treat (well, for me at least). This one is taken from Jamie’s Italy (Jamie’s Italy for readers from Europe). He claims he saw them in a trattoria in Florence.
This is one of the pork chops recipes, where at the end you’ll have both panfried and baked pork chops, and if your guests are not scared off by pork meat, you can surprise them with a hidden pocket with stuffing in it. And if you want to go lighter there’s always the Hunter’s chicken from the good ole Jamie.
The original pork chop recipe is for 4 people, but all the ingredients are in an even number, so you can easily divide them by two, like I did:
- 250-400g (½ – 0.75 pounds) potatoes (it’s 500g in the original recipe, but 250g per person is a lot of spuds!)
- salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil
- 2 pork chops with the bone
- 8 fresh sage leaves
- flour to dust
- 3 rashers of smoked bacon
For the stuffing of the pork chops:
- 4 sage leaves
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 large slices of ham
- 25g (1 oz) butter
- 2 dried apricots
Ok, the first part is tricky, but not impossible. You need to create a pocket for the stuffing inside the pork chops. To do it, insert a knife horizontally, being careful not to cut the meat from side to side, but just in the middle.
Dice the potatoes and put them in a pan with salted water. Leave them 5 minutes in boiling water, than drain and let them cool.
Now preheat the oven at 220° (430F).
Grind the ingredients for the stuffing in the food processor and press them into the pockets in the pork chops, push, push and push until there’s no room left.
Take 4 sage leaves, dress them with olive oil and press them on the flour on one side only of the pork chops. Stick them on each side of the chops, flour side down.
Cut the bacon in strips and put them in a roasting tray, with the remaining sage leaves, the garlic, and the potatoes and a bit of olive oil. Put the tray in the oven.
After 10 minutes, heat a frying pan, then add a little olive oil and fry the chops for 10 minutes until brown.
Put the pork chops on top of the potatoes and continue cooking in the oven for 10-15 minutes more.
The sage on the pork chops is not only for decoration, you’re supposed to eat them too.
More pork chop recipes
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