I love berries. But when I buy them, I seem to like them for a couple days, then I go on berry overload. So I need a way to use them if I choose not to freeze them for smoothies.
Last year, I made a delicious blueberry-rosemary-red-wine sauce to accompany pork, with my mom's advice. I grew up on ridiculously good sauces she made--bright citrusy-sage for chicken and white-wine-apple-onion for pork.
When I saw the last 1/4 of the pint of blueberries lookin' almost too sad to eat, I knew I had to take action.
So I came up with the blueberry-apple-leek sauce for center-cut boneless pork chops.
Makes 2-3 chops
1 mcintosh apple (or a similar small, tart one), chopped into thin, bite-sized pieces
1/4 pint rinsed blueberries (take those stems out)--basically a handful and a little more.
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
Three-1/4 inch slices (cross-sections) of a leek. Leeks last better than onions and don't smell up the fridge as much. Plus their flavor is a little more delicate
Pepper
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/3-1/2 cup pomegranate-blueberry juice
Start with apples, blueberries, leek slices and white wine vinegar. Put in saucepan over medium heat. It smells gross, but never fear. :) Once the vinegar burns off a bit, put in sugar, pepper and juice. Stir often, and bring up to a boil. Boil for several minutes.
In the meantime, heat up 1-2 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a skillet. Put two peeled whole cloves of garlic (crushed with the whack of a knife--the way Rachael Ray does it) in to season the oil, and heat on medium-medium high. Take cloves out as soon as they turn golden (before they burn). Put 2-3 pork chops in the oil and brown each side (about 1-2 minutes per side.) After this, remove pork chops from pan and let them rest for a couple minutes. Keep the garlic-oil in the skillet.
Pour the fruit mixture into the garlic oil pan and stir. Allow to boil again (it needs to in order to thicken), then put pork chops in with the fruit and cook for 3-4 minutes each side (though check it from time to time so as not to overcook or undercook the meat) on medium heat.
The color of the sauce is an unbelievable shade of aubergine purple. The flavor is savory and sweet and a little tangy. It keeps well (mmmmm leftovers!).
I served it with steamed broccoli and oven-roasted baby red potatoes and snap peas. (Coat the potatoes with extra virgin olive oil, pepper and thyme, and put them in a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes.)
I really love these random recipes that work out.
Comments (1)
um...what the heck. that sounds so awesome!!! i want to try it.