Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Pork

Hungarian pork tastes better and is more tender than American pork. Everybody always says that American pork has gotten much worse because it's now bred so lean. This is true: the National Pork Producers Council brags about it in Nutrition: Pork Is Vital to a Healthy Diet. People also say that American pork is bad because you have to overcook it to prevent trichinosis. This is false: there are almost no cases of trichinosis anymore (Trichinosis Fact Sheet).

Yesterday Tomoko and Rosanna came over for dinner. I cooked pork chops. This is how I cooked the pork:

  • 4 pork chops
  • ginger
  • two (or so) tbs. olive oil
  • half an onion
  • white wine
  • parsley

Salt and pepper the pork chops and fry them in a really hot pan with some diced ginger. Put them in warm oven when they're done. Take the pan you just used for the pork chop, heat up the oil (which shouldn't take any time), and fry the onions for a few minutes with a bit of salt and some more ginger, until they've lost their bite but still have a bit of crunch. Add the parsley (maybe about a quarter cup, loosely packed) and let it cook for about thirty seconds. Then, add in a cup (maybe more) of white wine and let it reduce. When it doesn't taste like wine anymore (five to ten minutes), add pepper and, if necessary, more salt to the sauce. If your pork chops got cold because you couldn't figure out how to light the oven (this might not be a problem for you), throw the pork chops back into the pan with the sauce until they heat up again. Put some more parsley on top.

And the cabbage, which is so easy it doesn't need an ingredient list:

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil up in a big pan and throw on the cabbage, salt, pepper, and a little bit of white wine (less than a quarter cup). Cook this at whatever temperature is convenient. (If you feel like stirring a lot, then use a high temperature.) When it's ready (not very long--should still be crunchy), turn up the heat all the way and stir more often for a minute. Next time I'll try adding some garlic.

4 comments:

Seth said...

Trichinosis--when I went to the Brazilian restaurant, I had pork, and the waiter asked me how I wanted it cooked. I thought it was weird, but the people I was with said there's no trichinosis in the U.S. anymore. I had it medium.

Anonymous said...

You're not in NY any more. Let's correct this blog.

Toby said...

Done.

Seth said...

Here's a page Josh found disturbing. I find it hilarious. Go figure.