pan roasting

The great thing about being a foodie and a photographer is... well...

I've been busy posting food pics of experiments and creations in a little Facebook album of mine, but those tiny captions won't hold the many things I have to say about the joys of cooking, so I'm cannibalizing my own material here. So to speak.

Pan roasting is one my most favourite kitchen techniques. It's simple, tasty, and makes you look like a pro chef with minimal effort.

You'll need:

pork chops
paprika
cooking oil
a few cloves minced garlic
julienned red chili (to taste)
heavy cream (or half-and-half if that's what ya got)
white wine
butter

Season pork chops with salt, pepper, and paprika (I like a sweet smoked Hungarian), and slap it on an oiled, oven-safe skillet at medium-high heat. Brown the one side, then flip once and throw it into a preheated oven at 375°F. Cook to your liking -- this one I photographed is cooked way past my liking because I forgot how thin the chop was. (As a sidenote: some people are terrified of pork that's not cooked to well-done. Don't be -- pork is loads safer today than in our parents' time.)

Set the chops aside (tent it with foil to rest, if you like), and put the pan back on the stove. Add a few cloves of minced garlic and some sliced red chili, then deglaze with a generous splash of white wine. Then add a glug of heavy cream, and keep stirring and simmering until it's thick enough to call a sauce. Take it off the heat, add a dab of butter, add salt and pepper to taste, and you've got a killer pan sauce.

I've got the sauce here on my chop with some steamed asparagus. Serve with potatoes or some good bread and butter, and you've got a quick and tasty dinner that's good enough for guests and looks like a million bucks.

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on the side...

• Hot pan, cold oil, dry meat. Patting your meat dry before putting it into a hot, well-greased pan is the difference between fragrant brown and mushy grey. Cold pan = stuck meat, and worse still, it'll steam cook instead of frying and browning. Ditto if your meat's soaking wet (i.e. a drippy defrosted steak), and the scalding splatter's no fun either. If you've got time, let your meat come to room temperature before cooking.
  
• Add butter at the end of a sauce. High heats change the flavour of butter and cook a lot of the aroma out of it. Adding butter after a sauce has come off the heat means you use less of it and taste more of it.