pork chops, onions and corn cobs: 3 ways

i bought a "max pack" of pork chops, onions, green bell peppers, and sweet corn cobs to feed me through the week's lunches and dinners. as you may have noticed, i tend to make things in bulk so i can just reheat and eat on off-cooking nites. it's just easier that way and i've been way too busy and pooped lately to cook on a regular basis. in this post you'll see how i made 3 very different tasting meals from the same ingredients.

the pork chop marinade consisted of fresh oregeno, garlic, lime juice, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and olive oil, a preparation similar to the pork shoulder pernil dish that i love and cook so much.

for my first batch, i could only fit 2 of 4 chops i had prepped in my non-stick grill pan. i scattered half of the onions and peppers around the pan and grilled the chops for about 7 or 8 minutes on each side.

what i noticed immediately after flipping the chops the first time was that oregeno had burned way before the meat had begun to brown. not good. the last thing i wanted was charred herbs and undercooked meat. but i finished off the chops and plated with the onions, peppers, and corn cob.

it looks good, and tasted good for the most part, but there was a off-taste from the burnt marinade. the onions and peppers were great though, having caramelized and sweetened in the process. the corn was good and by the way, that's not a huge pat of butter, but a spoonful of sour cream sprinkled with paprika (thanks to jen for that tasty, less-caloric tip).

so for the 2nd batch, i decided to "roast" the chops in a hot oven in a small baking dish. my reasoning here was that this marinade tasted fantastic on a large pork shoulder roast like the pernil, so why shouldn't it work in this smaller application? at least i wouldn't get charred herbs and burnt taste. so i arranged the 2 remaining chops, onions and peppers in a shallow roasting dish and popped it in the oven at 400 degrees.

30 min later, the pork was cooked. but it was a ugly, dull, grey-looking piece of bleh. no nice roast-y crust formed and the texture, while moist, was mushy. the onions and peppers were limp and bland. bleh. i had to endure this for 2 meals. does this picture below look any different from before it was cooked??

determined to get the formula right, i tried a 3rd time later that week. this time, i decided to stick with the grill pan to get that tasty caramelization that makes grilled food so good and ditch any marinade ingredients that would burn quickly. i combined garlic, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper and olive oil, basically a spice rub, no fresh herbs. 2 chops went down into the pan with red onions tossed with olive oil, lime juice, salt, pepper and a little bit of cilantro.

this time the chops browned nicely and cooked through evenly. i also shortened the cooking time to 6 minutes per side. by the time they were done, the onions were browning nicely as well and still had a little crunch.

it looked great so i plated myself a hearty portion. the corn this time was served with a lime half and salt. mm...

this was by far the most successful chop in terms of flavor, color, and texture. nothing was charred, the meat was nicely browned, and it was still moist and tender inside.

lesson to be learned? if you're pan-grilling meat that needs time to cook through, like pork chops, avoid fresh herbs in the marinade that will burn quickly. stick to spice rubs or if you really want to use fresh herbs, use hardy ones that will stand up to the searing heat like rosemary. also, don't expect roasting methods for large chunks of meat that sit in the oven for hours at a time will translate to small cuts of meat. the caramelization process doesn't go any faster and that's what you want for flavor, color and texture.