For His Master's Veneration: Pork with Night Shift Gravy

This wonderful pork dish features a gravy that might surprise you. Trust me on this. It is based on a proven flavor mix that has been a family favorite for ten generations. Hope that you find this new variation to be one your family will want over and over again.

Here is a modern gravy that draws its inspiration from tradition. I hope you will try it, change it to fit your tastes and keep it in your book of great sauces.

Ingredients:

2 lbs of nice thick pork – used here are boneless pork steaks –

a Saint Louis Favorite

3 slices of bacon

½ C of yellow onion chopped finely

3 cloves of garlic chopped

2 Tbs flour

1½ cup of chicken stock

1 Tbs soy sauce

1 tsp instant coffee

Directions:

When ready to cook, rinse and pat dry pork with paper towels.

Pre heat the oven to 250 degrees. (this is low and slow)

Line a pan with foil and spray a rack to set inside.

Place in oven for about 50 minutes or until a thermometer reads 110 - 120 degrees.

This give you plenty of time to do your cutting! Chop the onion and garlic in separate bowls.

When pork is about ready:

Fry the bacon until crispy, remove with slotted spoon reserving the bacon grease. Add butter, but don't let it burn, while it is still bubbling, sear the pork for 6 minutes on each side or until a nice golden.

This will go by quickly since the outside layer has dried in the oven. Look for temps to reach 150 degrees. Remove the meat and tent with foil.

Into the grease add the onions. Stir and cook for 5 minutes adding the garlic the last minute of cooking.

In a medium bowl mix chicken stock, soy sauce, and instant coffee.

Sprinkle cake flour into the skillet with the onions and garlic. Stir well. Crumble and add the bacon and the cup of chicken stock mix.

Cook and stir until nice and thick, about 6 to 7 minutes.

This is wonderful served with noodles, grits or even rice or quinoa! Pick a nice green vegetable to compliment textures and colors.

What a wonderful new sauce – gravy for you! It is based on the old Red Eyed Gravy that has been around for 200 years.

If you have never had this, try it before someone tells you what it is! Red-eye gravy was first created in the early 1800s. For hundreds of years, this salty, smoky sauce is heaven to mix with pork. And it's ridiculously easy. The purist version is just black coffee and the drippings from frying up some country ham. The thin sauce often separates, creating a rosy "red eye" of fat around the dark pool of coffee.

But for this dish we tone down some of the bitter notes in the traditional sauce, and create a new modern gravy.