Recipe of the day

11 April 2012

Pork chops and pickled red cabbage with apple:

Preparation: 30 minutes. Cooking: 60 minutes. Serves 4

If you are in a meaty mood and want a quick, delicious supper, it's hard to beat a nice pork chop. I particularly like loin chops, which come with a slice of kidney. My mum always used to grill them until the thick, fatty rind that ran down the chop blistered and crisped. She served them with apple sauce and mashed potato.

With plenty of gravy or a creamy mustard-flavoured sauce to pour over the top, this is a delicious, straightforward way of enjoying them. Another good idea, particularly if you don't like fat and crackling, is to trim away the fat and take the chops on an escalope route by dipping them in beaten egg, then in breadcrumbs mixed with finely chopped parsley and sage. Fry the chops for about six minutes each side until just cooked through. Again, these chops are terrific with mash.

Apple always goes well with pork and here it pops up in pickled red cabbage, a dish that ends up sweet and sour, crunchy and sloppy, with enough liquid to negate the need for gravy.

Unfortunately, this delicious way of preparing red cabbage requires long, slow cooking and the flavours become even better if it is left overnight, then reheated the next day. It is also very good served cold as a relish with cold cuts of any sort.

Peel, halve and finely chop the onion and garlic.
Heat two tablespoons of oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan placed over a medium-low heat and stir in the onion and garlic, cooking for about eight minutes until beginning to soften.
Trim the cabbage, cut into quarters lengthways and remove the core from each quarter. Slicing across the quarters, shred the cabbage. Rinse and shake dry.
Stir the cabbage into the onion, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.
Quarter, peel and core the apples and cut into dice.
Stir the apples and sultanas into the cabbage and cook for a few minutes before adding the vinegar.
Allow it to bubble away into the cabbage, then add 250ml stock.
Bring to the boil, reduce the heat immediately, partially cover the pan and leave to cook at a gentle simmer for 45 minutes, probably longer.
Top up with extra stock if towards the end of cooking it seems to be getting dry. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Stir in the parsley.
To cook the chops, pre-heat the grill to its highest setting. Make several short snips into the fat, cutting from the outside edge in towards the meat. This stops the chops buckling as they cook.
Season both sides with salt and pepper and grill for about six minutes a side until just cooked through.
Season the chops before serving with mash or baked potatoes and hot or cold pickled cabbage.

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