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This supper dish I am showing you today is one of my favourite kinds of supper dishes. A dish in which everything is cooked pretty much together, making for less mess and less of a clean up. But that doesn't mean less flavour as you will see! This is delicious!
It looks pretty tasty even before it goes into the oven! I was inspired by a recipe I found on Tablespoon for easy pork chops and stuffing. It used boxed stuffing mix however, which is not something that is readily available over here in the UK. We do have stuffing mix, but it is not the same thing as the one which the original recipe used.
The packaged stuffing we have over here uses rusk crumbs whereas the North American variety uses bread crumbs, and is seasoned quite differently. Most cooks would have been tempted to keep looking for a recipe to use, which required ingredients that were readily available to them. That's not me. I am not most cooks.
I liked the basic premise and then I set to work making it work for me, using what I had and adapting the recipe appropriately. This meant I had to make a stuffing from scratch, but . . . its not really that hard to do. I also didn't have frozen broccoli, but really how hard is it to blanche fresh broccoli. Not hard really at all.
By all means if you don't want to go to the trouble, then go to the original recipe and follow that one, but if you like cooking food without preservatives and additives, from scratch, Stay Right Here!
You won't regret it. This stuffing is moist and delicious, flavoured with celery, onion and dried cranberries along with a mix of herbs and seasonings. The pork is simply seasoned with salt and pepper and browned before laying on top of the stuffing and broccoli, the broccoli being fresh broccoli, simply blanched prior to baking.
Altogether this was very delicious, the pork lovely and moist . . . the stuffing filled with lovely flavours and the broccoli perfectly cooked. I served it with sweet potato fries because I had some which needed using up and they went very well, but so would mash or rice, or boiled or baked potatoes of any kind.
*Pork Chops & Stuffing*
Serves 4(slash fat edge prior to cooking to prevent curling)
oil
salt, pepper
2 cups broccoli florets, blanched in boiling water for 2 minutes2 stalks celery, trimmed and chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
60g of butter (1/4 cup)
4 cups of dry bread cubes (about 5 thick slices of stale bread, cubed and dried
in a hot oven for about 10 minutes)
a handful of dried cranberries
4 cups of dry bread cubes (about 5 thick slices of stale bread, cubed and dried
in a hot oven for about 10 minutes)
a handful of dried cranberries
1/4 tsp each dried thyme, parsley and sage
a dash of nutmeg
salt and black pepper to taste
chicken broth as needed
First make the stuffing. Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the celery, onion and carrot. Cook until tender over medium heat. Remove from heat. Place the bread cubes into a bowl. Toss with the vegetables/butter mixture and dried cranberries. Add the herbs and spices, as well as salt and black pepper to taste. Add chicken broth just to moisten.
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a shallow casserole dish large enough to hold all the chops in a single layer. Place the stuffing in the bottom of the dish and top with broccoli florets.
Dust the chops with salt and black pepper. Heat a bit of oil in the skillet you softened the vegetables in. Add the chops and brown them on both sides, for two to three minutes per side. Lay the chops on top of the broccoli in the baking dish. Cover tightly with foil.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I was sent some pork to try out near the end of December by The Black Farmer, some of his new range of fresh pork raised without anti-biotics. Leading the way in being the first mainstream brand to introduce the products, The Black Farmer has worked closely with partner farms to establish farming and production methods in response to the rising resistance to antibiotics. The selection of fresh British pork cuts from RSPCA assured pork can be easily identified by the blue Antibiotic Free swing tag. Today I cooked the loin chops that I had been sent. They were as lovely as the rest of it has been.
The Black Farmer range comprises a Shoulder Joint; Fillet Medallions; Loin Steaks; Loin Chops; Belly Joint and Belly Slices. Like many, The Black Farmer loves good roast pork and the meat is not the same without perfect crackling. His way is to score the fat, massage with oil and a good rub of coarse sea salt, then 20 minutes at a very high heat in the oven, before turning it down. Works every time! The Black Farmer Pork Range is available exclusively from the Online Grocery Ocado Shop.
About The Black Farmer
The Black Farmer is one of the UK’s leading gluten free brands marketing a range of higher welfare, award winning pork sausages, chicken, burgers, meatballs, pork cuts, bacon, eggs and cheese. Launched 12 years ago the brand has gone on to great success with its products available in all the major UK high street and online retailers. The brand’s founder, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is in his own words ‘a poor boy, done good’. He was born in Frankfield, Clarendon, Jamaica and then, after his parents came to the UK in the 1950s, was raised in inner city Birmingham. For a number of years Wilfred worked as a chef before pursuing a career in television. In 2000 Wilfred fulfilled a lifelong ambition to buy a small farm in Devon. This inspired him to develop and launch The Black Farmer – a name coined by his Devon neighbours. His Premium Pork sausages are one of the country’s leading brands of super premium sausages. Note - Although I was sent these products free of charge for the purpose of review, I was not required to write a positive review in exchange. Any opinions are quite simply my own.
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