Culinary School Chronicles - Stuffed Pork Chops

Only one more week of Culinary school left after today and I am so ready.  While I really have come to enjoy the classes, leaving the house on a Saturday morning at 7:45 is not quite so easily enjoyed.  In fact, it downright sucks.  I have enrolled in my next class on a Thursday night, so I`ll get my mornings back and just have to suffer through one long day per week, and Friday night dinners will be in the bag!

In today`s class we made stuffed pork chops.  This class was really more about the technique of stuffing a bone-in piece of meat than anything.  It also marked the first time getting to use my brand new boning knife. Damn, that thing is sharp!  I thought my other knives were sharp but this thing is like a razor blade.  As instructed by Chef, we made tunnels inside our chops using our knives.

I had friends over for dinner, so I went to the market and bought myself some bone-in pork loin that had been ``Frenched`` to add to the 2 chops we got in class.  I didn`t win the extra meat lottery this week sadly!

Frenching meat refers to the technique of removing any meat or fat to expose the bone for presentation purposes.  Most commonly you see this with rack of lamb, but it is often done with pork also.

So I cut my loin into chops, then layed them flat on my cutting board, which I pulled to the edge of my counter.  As Chef said, your inclination naturally is to angle your knife downwards when cutting, so it makes it a bit easier to keep your knife straight if you have extra elbow room to manipulate your knife, and having your board at the edge of your counter gives you this.

The technique is the to slip your knife in at the point where the bone becomes exposed, blade to the inside on the bone.  You lay your hand on top of the meat to act as a guide for your knife as you can feel it moving below you.

You slide your knife inside the meat to about 1/2 inch from the outside of the meat.  Then you flip your knife over and move the knife on an angle to create a pocket inside the chop. The trick is not to make your insertion point too big or your stuffing won`t stay inside, yet big enough that you can get your fingers inside with the stuffing.  If you end up with a big lump of stuffing in the middle, you just use the palm of your hand to flatten it for cooking.

There was no great magic to the stuffing recipe we made, so I modified it a bit at home to make it more interesting.  My friend France also gave me a massive bag of French tarragon from her backyard, so I decided to add some to the stuffing I brought home from school for my additional chops.  I also added in some Stilton cheese and golden raisins.

The recipe is pretty straightforward and after the chops were cooked, while I let them rest, I made a pan sauce by adding white wine, chicken stock, shallots and more tarragon to infuse a second layer of that slight licorice flavour that tarragon gives.  Tarragon is one of the four fines herbes in classic French cooking, the others being parsley, chives and chervil.

This recipe asks you to `sweat` your onion and celery. That basically means cooking in oil over heat to soften the vegetables but not add any colour.

Roasted Pork Chops Stuffed with Apple and Stilton

2 pork chops, thick centre cut, Frenched2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 stock celery, finely diced
2-3 stems tarragon, chopped
2 teaspoons parsley, chopped
2-3 ounces Stilton cheese (depends on how much you like blue cheese)
1/3 cup dried apples, finely diced
1/3 cup golden raisins
1 slice day old bread, diced
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Sweat onions over medium heat until just tender. Add celery, dried apples and raisins, and sweat for a further 5 minutes.  Add bread cubes, tarragon and parsley to the pan.  Add a small amount of wine to the pan to deglaze and to help bind the stuffing together.  Add more if required to help stuffing bind.  Add in cheese and combine. Remove from heat and set aside to cool so it can be easily handled.

Meanwhile, using your boning knife or paring knife, cut a pocket in each chop, being careful not to puncture the sides.  Fill with stuffing.

Heat remaining oil in a sauté pan, add chops and brown the chops about 1-2 minutes per side.  How long will be determined by how hot your oil and pan are.  Transfer chops to a roasting pan and place in preheated oven.  Roast until internal temperature reaches 175 degrees, approximately 15-18 minutes.

Make your beurre manie - combine 1 tablespoon flour with 1 tablespoon butter.  Combine until the flour absorbs all the butter and looks like a thick paste.

Deglaze your browning pan with white wine.  Add shallots (and optional tarragon) and chicken stock and bring to a low boil, scraping up any nice brown bits from the bottom of the pan.  Cook for 2-3 minutes so the alcohol evaporates from the sauce.  Add your beurre manie a little bit at at time until desired thickness is achieved.  I used about half of mine.

Serve with sauteéd vegetables and a side such as wild rice or a savoury bread pudding.