March 14-16 Pork Chops with Porter Onion Sauce (the beer, not the airline)

March 14   Salmon Cakes with yams
March 15   Wing night with The Neighbours
March 16   Pork Chops in Porter,  triple mash

I was going to make a different dish with the centre cut pork loin chops that I bought but I realized that I had over a cup of beer (a Porter from Black Creek) left after making my Black and Tan cupcakes for St Patrick's day and didn't want to waste it. Instead I decided to cook the pork with the beer and stole the idea of doing a trio of mashed root vegetables from the original recipe that I found in this month's LCBO magazine.
I made mashed potatoes with buttermilk, mashed sweet potato and mashed purple yams and some sugar snap peas. I have finally used up the last of the purple yams with this dinner and they are my new, favorite thing. They have a surprisingly floral taste and smell and are totally unlike anything I have ever tasted. Purple yams are most definitely NOT just yams of a different shade.




I based the recipe on this one that I found on Global Gourmet since it used dark ale and sour cream, both ingredients I had on  hand from the cupcakes and I love pork with grainy mustard. It also felt like a nice change from the normal stuff we tend to make on St Patrick's day. The only thing I would do different is to use a nice, thick chop. I had bought thin chops because I had planned to make something else with them and the chops were a little dry but the tasty, onion sauce made up for it. Doesn't it always?

For the mash, I just did a classic buttermilk/butter, salt and pepper for the potatoes, some butter, salt and pepper and whole milk for the sweet potatoes and just mashed up the purple yams with olive oil and kosher salt.

Pork Chops In Porter
Adapted from Pork Chops in Beer

4 pork loin chops
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
1 tbls olive oil
1 onion, sliced very thin
1 clove garlic, chopped
2/3 cup Porter (any stout would work well)
1-2 tbls apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tbls grainy mustard
1/2 cup sour cream


Heat pan over med high till really hot and add the olive oil. Salt and pepper the chops and then sear them in the hot pan for about 2 minutes per side until browned and remove them from the pan and set aside on a plate.
Add another tiny bit of oil if you need to and sautéed the onions and garlic until starting to brown and soften. Place the pork chops on top of the onions as well as any juices that have collected from the pork, pour in the beer and the vinegar, cover and turn the heat down to med and let cook for about 15 minutes.

Uncover the pan and take the chops out. Stir in the mustard and reduce the sauce a bit. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the sour cream.

Serve the chops with the sauce.