Pork Chops with Red Currant Sauce

I like to keep boneless pork chops in my freezer for quick-use on nights when I don’t really feel like making dinner, or when I haven’t planned a meal ahead of time.

Tonight was one of those nights.

Stas and I spent most of the day out running errands: Home Depot for duct insulation, REI for pants and hiking socks, SuperCuts for Stas’ haircut, and finally the mall for Dick’s and Express. I reallllllly wanted to go out for sushi, but it was still a bit too early when we left the mall to head home. (and once we were home, we didn’t want to go back out).

… so pork it was. I had found the recipe for Pork Chops with Red Currant Sauce on cookinglight.com a few weeks ago, and since then, the printed recipe had been sitting on my kitchen counter… waiting.

I gathered the ingredients (above), defrosted a pork chop in the microwave (I love the ‘defrost meat’ setting… some people may cringe, but it works like a charm every time) and peeled and started boiling some potatoes.

The original recipe called for 1lb pork tenderloin, trimmed and cut into pork chop-like pieces, but I used just 1 actual pork chop and halved the ingredients. (It was for Stas. For myself, I couldn’t actually decide what I wanted for dinner. I ended up having sauteed mushrooms and dill in sour cream with a side of broccoli.) I also ended up coating it in some homemade breadcrumbs and fried it in sunflower oil instead of cooking spray. Here’s the finished dish, with a side mountain of mashed potatoes and a cucumber/tomato/salt+pepper/sunflower oil salad:

Here’s the recipe as I made it:

Pork Chops with Red Currant Sauce
(adapted from Cooking Light, April 2008)

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon dried sage
pinch black pepper
1 boneless pork chop, trimmed
bread crumbs
sunflower oil
2 tablespoons red currant jelly
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
chives (i used dried)

1. Combine first 5 ingredients in small bowl. Cover pork chop with plastic wrap and pound to 1/2-inch thickness using a meat mallet. Rub pork with spice mixture and then dredge in bread crumbs.

2. Heat oil in nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork to pan and cook about 3 minutes on each side, or until done. Remove pork from pan and keep warm. Pour out remaining oil.

3. Add jelly to pan; cook 30 seconds, scraping pan to gather up any browned bits. Remove from heat; stir in vinegar. Pour sauce over pork chop and sprinkle with chives.

serves 1 (but can easily be doubled/tripled/etc. to serve more)