I have never cooked pork before. Let me rephrase that. I have cooked the bacon form of pork, but other than that, I have never cooked pork. We don’t eat a whole lot of pork around here, but have a freezer and ½ full of it. It is a long boring story on why we have this, but the bottom line is – freezer full of pork, we never eat it, its still there.
Last week I decided I would bite the bullet and attempt cooking it. I don’t really…like, the flavor of pork. Maybe its from not eating it much, just not being used to it, or simply not appreciating the pork-y flavor – Im just not a fan. But I was determined. But since I have never cooked it – I had NO idea what to do with it, all I knew was that I wanted to flavor it so I didn’t have to taste the pork. I decided to marinate it, thinking it was my best option to mask the flavor.
The only problem is – most of the recipes I found called for soy sauce and thanks to an ordering error, we havent had any soy sauce for a long time. As a side note – that is pretty much the main ingredient for everything I cook, so cooking has been a stretch for me lately. But back on topic. I found two or three that looked interesting, cut and pasted the main ingredients, printed my list out and went to play with my 3 boneless pork chops.
I didn’t measure anything, I just dumped and stirred and guessed and freaked out. It was vinegar based, I guess you could say since I went a little pour happy with the vinegar. Followed by some onion, garlic, hot sauce, chili powder, salt, pepper, brown sugar, ginger, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice. I went a little heavy on the brown sugar because I didn’t want it to taste completely sour, but I have to say the lemon juice was probably the best addition.
Then I lay the chops in a pan, put two slits in the tops of them, and stuffed some garlic in there for extra flavor. Poured the marinade over the top and let them sit in the fridge for a few hours before sticking the pan straight from the fridge into the oven.
I cant say the pork flavor was COMPLETELY masked, but it was enough so that I ate my entire chop. Which wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t atleast decent tasting. No one complained, but they rarely do, so I really cant go off of that. Ha.
Tangy, spicy and slightly sweet would be words I would use to describe it.
Either way, I would say it was a fairly successful first attempt at pork, and possibly good enough for a repeat.
And best of all? It was easy. I almost felt bad that it was dinner, since I couldn’t have asked for an easier meal.
1-2 cups vinegar
½ cup Lemon Juice
½ cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon Chili powder
½ Onion, chopped small
Hot sauce, a few splashes
Worcestershire
Garlic, crushed
Ginger, either fresh or powder
Salt
Pepper
Mix well, pour over pork chops.
Tangled Thoughts 