Cooking Cheap

I was in the mood for a pork chop and a longer effort than grilling it or frying it. As I often do, I cruise the internet looking for recipes that flip my switch for the night. That switch was labeled “goulash”, but I didn’t have the ingredients the recipe called for. But I do have the makings for my old worn Betty Crocker version of goulash. It turned out well enough to write it down.

[serves 1 to 2 people]

• 1 thick bone in pork chop. 3/4lb
• Flour for dusting
• Salt and pepper
• Small glove of garlic, minced
• Half a medium onion, sliced.
• 2 Tbl catsup
• 1 Tbl Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 Tbl brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp dry mustard
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• 3/4 C water or broth or wine ….
• [Optional] slurry of water and flour or cornstarch

Heat skillet to medium, add enough oil to coat bottom. Salt and pepper the pork chop and dust in flour. Shake off excess and brown the chop in the skillet for a few minutes per side. This is a good time to slice the onion and chop up the garlic and find the other stuff in the pantry and fridge.

Remove chop and put on a plate. Reduce heat to medium low. If needed, remove or add some oil, depending on your skillet, the amount of flour on the chop and the amount of oil you started with. Again, you just need a light coating. Add the onions and saute for a couple of minutes, Add the garlic and just look all chef like stirring the stuff for another minute. Add every thing else except the slurry. Mix. Add the pork chop to the sauce, cover the skillet and reduce heat to the lowest simmer you can get.

Barely simmer for 45 minutes to an hour adding liquid as needed for your sauce consistency. In fact, I only added half the water at the start and then replenished it a table spoon or two at a time. If you end up with soup at the end then, you have to thicken it with a slurry or remove the lid and up the heat a notch and reduce it (which will probably dry out the chop]

You now have time to prepare your starch to meat their gravy. Mashed potatoes, rice, noodles or what I did is make a half recipe of Spaetzle. The little dumplings match well with the spicy gravy.

Cooks notes
[[6/18/05]
Knowing how long to braise the pork chop before it gets way too dry and keeping the liquid level at the amount of gravy you want is the only trick to this dish. Even if the chop is a little dry it still tastes very good so don’t worry too much about that. I could even argue the texture and feel is better if you go for the longer time. Just keep the lid on and the liquid level correct. Yes, you have to lift the lid to check or add. It’s cooking.

I used water but I’m sure a chcken broth or beef broth would be fine but you should eliminated the salt in the recipe if your broth is canned or a bullion. . A full bodied (aka dark or malty) beer might be even better. If I had some red wine in the fridge, I’d have used it for half the liguid. Those substitutions have not been tested by me.

If water is your liquid, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to add bunch of it and then thicken it later. There’s still the same amount of flavor particles no matter how much water and slurry you add. I prefer to use less at the beginning and add it over time. For completeness, a slurry to thicken is 1/8 cup water and 1Tbl flour mixed together. You probably don’t have a 1/8 C measure. I don’t. Two or three Tbl of water ought to do it. It’s not that important a measurement. Truth be told, I didn’t measure any of the ingredients, I just gave it my best guess. It’s a pork chop, its paprika and onion gravy. There’s no way it will be bad.

If you use boneless chops, or thin chops you can probably cut the time in half but that’s just a guess on my part. I wanted to fuss over something for an hour (but no more than that). It’s a pork chop in a paprika and onion gravy. Just don’t burn anything and I’ll be fine.