Put your GREAT mustard on your meat and cook it!!

Decided to make thick pork chops today. Bought a couple and brined them (wow, it's nice to have on hand in canning jars)...

Wanted to try a Waldy Malouf recipe from my High Heat cookbook as the best chops we've made yet were his veal chop recipe (but the meat from Johnny G's in Bloomingdale didn't hurt either).

I decided to adapt his Roasted Pork Chops with Cabbage and Mustard as I didn't have any cabbage to be adventurous and try it, and also really tend to not like cooked cabbage.

So we made Roasted Pork Chops with Onions and Mustard. Wow was it fantastic!

Cranked the oven up all the way with the terra cotta bowl and it's underneath piece in it to preheat.

Cooked 6 slices of bacon nice and crisp. Fried 1 big sliced Mayan Sweet onion in it - not stirring much and carmelizing it quite a bit, deglazed with white wine.

By the way we have stainless cookware, I don't know if you could brown like this in non-stick or would need to deglaze.

Put the onions in an 11x7 pyrex baking dish, crumbled the bacon over it.

A half hour before cooking the pork chops, which had been brined for 2 hours, took them out and dried with paper towels. Stuck a Polder probe in also.

Peppered the pork chops and rubbed really good stone ground mustard on them.

Placed pork chops on the onions, and put it in inside the terra cotta in the oven. Reduced the oven to 400.

We cooked them to about 80 degrees then turned them over. At around 120 we turned the oven off figuring the terra cotta would take it the rest of the way, which it did.

I can't believe the effect the mustard had on this dish. We've done chicken with mustard before but never used a super high quality mustard.

This was Tulocay's Napa Valley Stone Ground Mustard with Roasted Garlic and Cabernet. They had it out at a Sam's Wine Tasting in Downer's Grove one day, bought it and loved it. Used it on sandwiches but never thought to cook with it before.

Wow, what a dish. If you want to try it without terra cotta, first broil to brown both sides, then cook the rest of the way (book said 15 minutes) at 400.

Also had a lovely salad of fennel and mandarin orange "supremes", with Solera 1792 sherry vinegar and some really good olive oil, salt and pepper.

Some great green onion smashed potatoes (a Bobby Flay recipe from food tv we've made a few times and really like).

Wow, sure beat the pants off the pheasant dinner we had the night before.

Next plan, honey mustard chicken. Got to get to Caputo's early and buy us a couple of tiny birds. Gonna try the mesquite honey we get at Trader Joes and love so much.

Will be needing to go back to Sam's Wine & Spirits to get more of that great mustard. But heck, I was going to go there for the xmas food gift stuff anyway.

Nancy

HI,

You may or may not find this of interest. In Gary's 5-Step to Weber Smokey Mountain Success, plenty of cheap mustard is use. The mustard is smeared on pork ribs and shoulder to allow spice rub's to stick to the meat. Interestingly, the mustard taste is never present after the meat is cooked.

I assume with your shorter cook the mustard taste lingered.

Regards,

Cathy,

The mustard didn't just linger, it really blended with the pork to create a really amazing flavor.

I wouldn't have thought there were "mustard soluble flavors" but don't know.

The mustard was definitely a presence, and a very nice one.

Nancy

I've seen several mentions of terra cotta cooking the past few days. I know absolutely nothing about either the device or the technique. Can anyone point me toward a reference?

TIA

Geo

Geo,

It's a cheap way of simulating a brick oven. No, it's not as nice as a real brick oven, but it is a step in that direction.

It's from Good Eats, episode "Family Roast". He does a standing rib roast in it.

When I posted about small chickens someone recommended the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. They have a famous roast chicken recipe, all cooking at 475. She also mentioned the chicken is best roasted in brick oven in the intro of the book, so I did mine in terra cotta.

It was great.

I also make my own brown broths, that is, roast meat nice and browned, then make broth out of it. Terra Cotta at 475 is brilliant for that too.

What you need is a terra cotta BOWL, about 16" in diameter. Then a 16" terra cotta drip plate. Inside that you put something that fits, like a pyrex 11x7 dish (sometimes in two pack with a 13x9).

Good luck finding the terra cotta though. I have no idea if you can get it at this time of year. I got mine at Pasquesi's in Barrington last May, they also have a Lake Forest location.

They do pretty much mostly run that Good Eats episode as a pre-xmas thing, but I'm not sure that means these places are still stocking the terra cotta. Call first.

Nancy

Geo, the idea behind using a terra cotta 'pot' in the oven is so that the heat distribution inside the clay chamber is even - as opposed to putting your food in the oven directly which reflects heat to varying intensities unevenly depending on the location of deposits, etc. inside. The Alton Brown episode described it nicely.

Nancy Sexton wrote:

"The mustard didn't just linger, it really blended with the pork to create a really amazing flavor."

This is a bit of a tangent, but for those who have never prepared rabbit, I highly recommend liberally slathering the meat in Dijon mustard (the cheaper the better-- I recommend Amora brand, the French French's Mustard), and grilling the rabbit over medium to medium-high heat outdoors. The hot mustard is transformed when grilled with the meat, and becomes surprisingly mellow, letting the rabbit flavor emerge. (By the way, excellent rabbits raised in China are available frozen at the Marketplace on Oakton in Skokie.) Rabbit is healthy and flavorful, yet surprisingly undemanding. It could be the thinking person's best alternative to the popular yet disappointing boneless skinless chicken breast. . . But then again, maybe it's better not to think too much about it. McBunny Muffin anyone?

Josephine,

About how many pounds should a rabbit be?

I once bought one under cryovac from Caputo's and was quite bewildered cutting it up in how to get something like 6-8 pieces. The legs were the only obvious thing, the rest looked like a chicken back except two really thin pieces that were presumably from the stomach.

Ended up using just the legs and those flappy things. Created a braised tomato-onion-carrot-celery dish that I had been substituting chicken in for a while.

Then later on PBS I saw Michael Chiarello and somebody making a rabbit, it actually had breast meat! Mine was so scrawny in comparison.

But then are all baby critters yummy, like little chickens are, so scrawny is OK? Caputo's has those scrawny rabbits again right now. I'm guessing they're around 3 lbs each.

Also, I feel the original intent of this post has really gotten lost. I swear that high quality stone ground mustard was really worth it over Grey Poupon or something cheaper. I had done mustard rubs before, but never with a really high quality mustard, and never got as good of effects with the cheaper stuff.

Besides, I end up buying this delicious mustard, then just occasionally use it on a sandwich, seemed like a waste to hardly ever use it.....

Nancy