Recipe: Dining In Cookbook
Total Time: 1 hr
Review: I was the weird kid who always loved when we had pork chops for dinner – even my birthday meal request would be for pork chops and apple sauce. Something about them just really spoke to little Jane. And you know what, she was right.
Alison Roman’s take on these pork chops is soo good. I don’t think Zak and I ever really ate pork chops – but once we tried this recipe, we’ve had them pretty regularly since. Even just thinking about them is making my mouth water. You season the pork chops with brown sugar, toasted fennel seeds (through a spice grinder), black pepper, and salt – and even just letting it sit for 30 minutes does something magical. Then, when you cook it in the pan, the sugar caramelizes, and you cook the fennel in that – and oh man, just couldn’t get any better.
Also – PSA that we get our pork chops from (and get most of our meat from) our local butcher, The Meat Hook. They get super high quality, local meat from farms in upstate NY. We really love all their meat – but I think you can taste the most difference in their pork. The chops have this beautiful white meat, with nice big fat caps that cook down until they’re shatteringly crisp on the outside and like butter on the inside. I am not a person who likes to eat the fat – but these just seriously melt in your mouth.
I highly recommend getting some pork chops from your local butcher and trying out this recipe next time you’re looking to treat yourself.
– Jane