Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Carnage du Jour - 31 August 2010

Well, it was pork chops again, and that's always a good thing.

This time, however, I was looking for a way to make it a bit lighter - not a lot of rice or pasta or potatoes to go with the pork.  Besides, it was too hot to do much cooking.  So ....

A bit of onion, sweated in some olive oil.  Removed from the pan, where the chops were then cooked in that nice onion-flavoured oil.  They had been dusted with kosher salt, some beau monde, and some chipotle powder on one side.  At the turn (of the chops), some orzo was added to a pot of boiling water - it finished up shortly after the chops were removed to rest on a platter.
But perhaps the tastiest part was when the onions went back in the pan, and cucumber slices were added to the mix.
If you've never cooked cucumber, you ought to try it.  They didn't soften and dissolve as one might have expected (I didn't), but rather held up quite nicely, with the browning adding a nice sweetness to their flavour.  As they were finishing up, I added some chopped tomato to the pan and gave it a quick stir.  A small amount of chicken stock was added, and then in went the (well drained) orzo.

Quite a nice dinner, and very quick and simple.

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