Home Bites - Pork Chops with Sweet and Sour Peppers from Gordon's Ultimate Cookery Course

I finally did the grocery shopping today and I took this as an opportunity to buy ingredients for a simple dish from Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course. It was a show with 20 episodes that's full of easy recipes and tips from the Master Chef host. I stopped watching after episode 1 because I wanted to try at least one recipe from each episode and if I did a marathon I'd be too overwhelmed.

This first dish was pretty easy, and I love that the ingredients are easy to find, especially here in the country. I get intimidated watching other cooking shows because they have ingredients that are unheard of this side of the globe.

You can watch the episode below and cook alongside Gordon, or you can download the recipe PDF here (It's a torrent, because the one on the site leads to an ad).

Pork Chops with Sweet and Sour Peppers

Ingredients:

•         2 pork chops, about 200g each
•         Olive oil, for frying
•         2 garlic cloves, skin on, crushed
•         Small bunch of thyme
•         Butter

     For the peppers:

•         Olive oil, for frying
•         1 red onion, peeled and sliced
•         2 red peppers, deseeded and thinly sliced
•         Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
•         1 tbsp caster sugar
•         3 tbsp red wine vinegar
•         1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
•         Small bunch of basil, leaves shredded

Gordon gives a great tip for slicing peppers in the video. I'm also proud to share that I didn't shed a single tear while slicing my onion!

1. For the peppers: Heat a little olive oil in large frying pan, then add the onion and peppers. Season with salt and pepper, add the sugar and sauté over a high heat for 4–5 minutes until soft and coloured. (Make sure you can hear the vegetables hissing in the pan. If not, the pan isn’t hot enough and you’re in danger of boiling the vegetables instead of frying them.)

2.  Add the vinegar and let it bubble for a minute or two until it has reduced and the peppers are soft. Turn down the heat, add the tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and cook for a further 2–3 minutes. Stir in the shredded basil and continue to cook for 30 seconds, then turn off the heat. Decant into a bowl and set aside to infuse. Wipe the pan clean, ready to cook the pork.

3. Using a sharp knife, make cuts into the fat of the chops, about 5mm deep and at 3–4cm intervals,   making sure you don’t cut into the meat. (This will stop the meat from curling up during cooking and will make it cook more evenly.) Season the chops really well with salt and pepper on both sides, pushing the seasoning into the meat.

4. Place the cleaned-out frying pan over a high heat until hot and add a dash of oil. Add the chops, garlic and thyme and fry for 2–3 minutes until coloured. Turn and fry for a further 2–3 minutes on the other side, pushing the thyme under the chops and breaking up the garlic a little.

Note: I couldn't find fresh thyme so I used dried thyme instead.

5. Towards the end of cooking time, add 3 knobs of butter and baste the chops with it as they are cooking, to speed up the cooking process and keep the chops moist. (Push the fatty edge of the chops towards the back of the pan to help render the fat.) Squeeze the garlic out of its skin and place with the herbs on top of the chops.

Note: My pan was small so I had to cook the chops in two batches. I put one slice of butter for each chop.

6. Transfer the chops to a plate, and rest for 5–10 minutes, spooning over the basting butter now and again.

(The first chop on the right got a bit burned on the edges haha!)

Here's the finished product. Of course I had to eat it with rice. The peppers turned out great! I'm not fond of sweet and sour mains but this paired perfectly with the seasoned chops. I'm so happy I learned to cook another dish. Stay tuned for another recipe from episode 2!