Pork Chop and Roasted Veggies

Here’s a solid WEEKNIGHT BANGER for you. It’s a simple sautéed pork chop with some roasted veggies and a green salad. It’s relatively easy and very delicious. There’s not much prep and it’s relatively healthy, as far as dishes with a pork chop go.

Ingredients (for two people)

• 2/3 lb pork chop (nice and thick), seasoned with salt and pepper and allowed to sweat out the salt for like 15 minutes prior to cooking.
• 7 small red, white, gold, or fingerling potatoes
• 3 carrots
• Some red-leaf lettuce
• Some romaine lettuce
• Salt
• Pepper
• Herbs de Provence
• Olive oil
• Vegetable oil

Crank the oven up to 400 degrees or so. Slice the potatoes in half and chop the carrots into half-inch segments. Throw them into a large bowl, toss some olive oil on them to coat, then throw in a bunch of salt, pepper, and Herbs de Provence until they look like they’ll be delicious later. Be lighter on the salt, heavier on the black pepper (use a grinder on whole peppercorns), and use the Herbs to your heart’s delight. Toss everything a bit then lay them on a roasting pan and put them in the oven.  They’ll cook in 30 minutes or so.  Look, it’s not exact, just check on them after 25 minutes and if you can’t put a fork easily into the veggies, close the oven.  When they start to get a little brown and they look like you can’t wait another minute before eating them, they’re done as far as I’m concerned. Don’t overthink roasted veggies.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a cast iron or steel oven-safe skillet on medium-high until smoking then throw the pork chop in there.  You bought a thick pork chop right? Maybe even a bone-in one? Good.  If you didn’t, you’ll have to cook this pretty quick but it will give you extra time to think long and hard about your choices in life and what brought you to this point.

So anyway, you’re looking to get a nice crust on this chop. Sear it for a few minutes on each side then check the temp.  Assuming you got a good, thick, high-quality chop, then we can cook this to about 140 degrees or so for medium rare. Check the temp on it and if it’s not at 140 then throw the whole pan in the oven and keep an eye on it.  Check on it every 5 minutes until it gets to about 135 at which point you should take it out, put it on a cutting board, and let it rest for 10 minutes or so.

While the pork is resting, chop up the lettuce, find or make your favorite dressing, then toss it together. 

Slice the pork chop up and serve it with the roasted veggies and the salad. If you want to get fancy, you can make a pan sauce with the pork juices in the pan.  You can throw a slurry of flour/water, some pepper, some butter, and mushrooms in there and reduce it down to a delicious pork gravy.

I’m not here to tell you how to live your life except to say you should buy good, thick, bone-in pork chops, preferably red ones from the rib.