Baked Boneless Pork Chops
When I’ve made pork chops in the past, which is about twice, I always did the same thing: season it a bit, then overcook it on the stove. So when I found this recipe online I got very excited about it, especially because all (5) of the reviews were raving about the taste and how easy it was to prepare.
I love easy.
One of the reviews said they replaced the paprika with curry powder, and I love curry, so I was going to go that route (look at me! I’m altering recipes already!) The second thing I decided to do was eliminate the lemon juice, because when I was a young child my mother warned me to never drink milk and orange juice together because it would make me throw up. Now that I suffer from emetophobia (and I seriously contemplated whether or not I should put that link on, mainly because I’m writing about food, but whatever,) there was no way in hell I was going to add lemon to the milk-based gravy.
I combined all of the ingredients as instructed (and I’ve discovered very quickly that “combining” is my favorite part of any recipe,) “dredged” my chops, did the browning thing and placed them in the baking dish. (Aside: I was kind of horrified at how much butter was involved, but I figured that was one instruction I wasn’t going to mess with.)
I then proceeded to combine (wheee!) the remainder of the ingredients into the skillet to make the sauce. When I added the milk I got super excited to see that I was actually making a thick sauce from scratch - every sauce I’ve ever made has come from a powder in a box. I started to become concerned with the chop-to-sauce ratio. Especially when I poured it into the baking dish and noticed that it filled the entire thing. However, I was following the recipe, so I put the dish in the oven and figured I’d just see what happened.
I decided to make some orzo to go along with it, so about 20 minutes before the pork was scheduled to be finished, I grabbed the box from the pantry and opened it up… only to find a slew of little worm carcasses stuck to the inside of the lid. I’m not sure how long the orzo was in the pantry, but I knew it had been at least a year, so I now know that you can’t keep orzo that long.
So I tossed that out.
I had another box, and after a careful inspection for more carcasses (there were none) poured it into a pot on the stove. When I added the water, all of the worm carcasses that I didn’t see floated to the top. So I sent my husband out to get new orzo, hoping he knew what orzo was.
The moment of truth arrived, and I pulled the pork out of the oven. I stared at it. The sauce was very yellow and kind of lumpy… I equated the yellow to the curry, but I started to get a little anxious about the lumps. I was worried that the milk had curdled during its hour in the oven. I leaned in close to smell the sauce, and could only smell curry, so I had Jon and Kyle smell it as well. They said it smelled fine. I picked up one of the lumps and squished it between my fingers, relieved to find out it was flour. (Not entirely relieved. Now that the possibility of curdled milk had entered my mind, it wasn’t going anywhere.)
I placed a chop on top of some orzo, then poured the sauce on top. And it looked like barf on rice:
HOWEVER…
Jon and Kyle dug right in and raved. When I finally took a bite, I was surprised to find that as long as I didn’t look at it, it was edible.
OVERALL RESULT:
Nowhere near my goal of culinary genius. Lots of flavor, visually horrifying, and nowhere near Gay. Probably wouldn’t make it again. Kyle wants the recipe.
RECIPE:
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. paprika
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 lbs. boneless pork chops
1/2 c. butter
1 minced sm. onion
1/2 c. minced green pepper
1 can (4 oz.) sliced mushrooms, drained
2 c. milk
Juice of 1 lemon
Mix 1/4 cup flour, paprika, salt and pepper. Dredge chops lightly in mixture. Brown chops on both sides in butter.
Transfer to shallow baking dish. Add onion, green pepper and mushrooms to skillet. Cook until onion is soft and golden.
Stir in remaining 1/4 cup flour. Blend in milk, stirring constantly and cook until sauce is smooth and thickened. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice. Pour sauce over chops.
Bake, uncovered, in preheated oven 350°F for 1 hour.
Makes 4-6 servings.
ACCOUTREMENTS:
Wines: There is no alcoholic beverage in the world that can make this meal look better.
Dessert: Anything. And lots of it. Because everyone will be starving after not eating this pile of Bad.
