Pork Chops with Apple Sauce and Buttered Cabbage

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy-bottomed frying pan, cast iron if you have one
• •Small saucepan with a lid, for the apple sauce
• •Wide pan or sauté pan, for the cabbage
• •Kitchen tongs

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the apple sauce

   Start the apple sauce first. It wants time. Put the chopped Bramleys into a small saucepan with the sugar and a splash of water, barely enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Set it over a low heat with a lid on. The apples will collapse in ten to fifteen minutes, falling apart into a rough, pale sauce without any help from you. Stir it once or twice. When it's soft and fluffy, taste it. If it needs more sugar, add a little, but err on the side of sharpness. The pork wants something with bite, not something sweet. A squeeze of lemon at the end keeps it honest. Set it aside.

   Bramleys are the apple for this. They cook down to nothing, which is the point. An eating apple will hold its shape and you'll end up with chunks, not sauce. If you can't find Bramleys, any tart cooking apple will do.
2. 2

   Season the chops

   Take the chops out of the fridge a good twenty minutes before you cook them. Cold meat in a hot pan tightens and toughens. Season them generously on both sides with salt and pepper. Press the salt in with your fingers. More than you think. The bone and the fat need seasoning too.

3. 3

   Fry the pork chops

   Get a heavy pan properly hot. Not warm. Hot. Add the oil and then the knob of butter. When the butter foams and the foam starts to subside, lay the chops in, away from you so the fat doesn't spit at your wrist. Leave them alone. Three to four minutes on the first side, until the underside has gone deep golden and the edges of the fat have started to turn crisp and translucent. Turn them once. The second side needs the same time, perhaps a little less. If the chops are thick, stand them on their fat edge for a minute, holding them with tongs, to render that strip of back fat until it's golden and crisp. This is worth the trouble.

   The chop is done when the flesh feels firm but gives slightly when you press it with a finger. If it's rigid, you've gone too far. Rest the chops on a warm plate for five minutes before serving. The meat relaxes. The juices redistribute. Cutting too soon loses everything the resting gives you.
4. 4

   Butter the cabbage

   While the chops rest, cook the cabbage. It won't take long. Melt the butter in a wide pan over a medium heat with the flattened garlic clove. When the butter foams, add the shredded cabbage and turn it through the butter with tongs. Season with salt. Cook for three to four minutes, turning it occasionally, until the leaves have wilted and gone bright green but still have some life in them. You want tender, not limp. Grate a little nutmeg over the top. Not much. Just enough that you notice something warm underneath the butter. Fish out the garlic.

5. 5

   Rest and serve

   Put a chop on each warm plate. Spoon the cabbage alongside, letting some of the butter from the pan come with it. A generous spoonful of apple sauce next to the pork, not on it. Let people help themselves to more from the pan. Pour any resting juices from the chops over the meat. That's dinner.

Chef Tips

• •Buy the best chops you can. A good butcher's pork chop, from an outdoor-reared animal with a decent covering of back fat, will taste like a different thing entirely from a pale, lean supermarket chop. The fat is where the flavour lives. Don't trim it. Render it.
• •The apple sauce should be sharp, not sweet. The job of the sauce is to cut through the richness of the pork, not to agree with it. If your apples are very tart, a tablespoon of sugar is enough. Taste it before you add more. You can always sweeten it, but you can't put the sharpness back.
• •Don't crowd the pan when frying the chops. Two chops in a wide pan is fine. Three is a crowd. Overcrowding drops the temperature and the meat steams instead of frying. You want colour and crispness, and that only comes from proper heat.
• •A glass of dry cider alongside this is not compulsory, but it's not a bad idea either. The apple in the glass nods to the apple on the plate. Right food, right evening.

Advance Preparation

• •The apple sauce can be made a day or two ahead and kept in the fridge. It reheats gently or serves well at room temperature. It also freezes for a month.
• •The cabbage is best cooked just before serving. It takes four minutes. Don't try to get ahead of it or it loses its colour and bite.
• •Season the chops and leave them uncovered on a plate in the fridge for a few hours before cooking if you can. The salt draws moisture from the surface, which means a better crust in the pan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 550g)