Saturday, August 12, 2017

Pork Chops a'la Don Leon

A package of six pork chops on sale for $5.00 means two inexpensive dinners. Tasty and elegant this is simple to throw together and still impressive. Pork, garlic,wine, and mushrooms blend to excite your evening meal.


 

This dish is named after Don Leon, not a person but a poem! Slave was reading an excellent article by Will Kohler on his site “Back2stonewall”. It tells of a Capt. Henry Nichols who was hung on this date in London, 1833, for the grime of “buggery”. Please read my short article on this poem after the recipe.


Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 boneless pork chops, 1 inch thick
  • 16 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 1½ cups white wine (Riesling used)
  • 4 oz mushrooms
  • ½ cup chicken broth, plus more if needed
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Hearty Green Beans:
  • 1 pound frozen green beans
  • 2 tablespoons butter (room temperature)
  • 1 tsp of roast beef seasonings

Directions

 Do your prep work: Peel the garlic cloves and mix the butter with seasonings.


Heat the oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a heavy skillet over high heat. Salt and pepper both sides of the pork chops and sear them until they're nice and golden, about 2 minutes per side. (No need to completely cook the chops at this point.) Remove the chops from the skillet and set aside. 
 



Reduce the heat to medium high, then throw in the whole cloves of garlic. Stir them around and cook until they get nice and golden brown, a couple minutes.
 


Pour in the wine, then add the mushrooms. Stir it around and cook, raising the heat if necessary, until the sauce is reduced and thick, several minutes. 
 



Stir in the broth (you can add more if it needs the liquid) and add the chops back to the skillet, arranging them so they're swimming in the sauce. Cook the chops in the sauce for a few minutes, then add the balsamic. Shake the skillet to get it to distribute, then cook for a couple more minutes, or until the pork chops are done.
Remove the chops from the skillet once more, then let the sauce reduce a little more if needed, until it's very thick and rich and the garlic is soft. Swirl in the remaining 1 tablespoon butter and sprinkle in a little salt and pepper.
Arrange the pork chops on a platter, then pour spoonfuls of sauce (including the garlic) over the top. Serve with Hearty Green Beans if desired.

Hearty Green Beans:

Cook the green beans in microwave according to package. Blend the seasonings into the room temperature butter until well incorporated. When beans are done, place this butter mixture on top and serve with a stir.
Serve chops on platter with the sauce and green beans on the side.
What a treat to serve the Master.



For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnDtxiNwDS8


socialslave

To satisfy and restore.
To nourish, support and maintain.
To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to nurture, assist, and sustain
..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes 

by 












=========== 


On this day in 1833, Captain Henry Nichols was convicted on “the clearest evidence” of the capital offense of “Sodomy”.

The Captain was just fifty years of age. He was a fine looking man, and had served in the Peninsular war. He was part of a highly respectable family; but, since his arrest, not a single member of it visited him.

We read that he was perfectly calm and unmoved throughout the trial, even when the sentence of death was passed.

At 9 o’clock in the morning the sentence was carried into effect.
--------
We might have forgotten him except for a poem named Don Leon!
This first-person narrative written in 1833 under the name of Lord Byron (who was already dead by then) was the first overt literary defense of homosexuality in English. We don't know for sure who wrote it, but they were words that took much courage in the face of the death penalty.
It opens with a scene inspired by Captain Nichols' trial:

          Don Leon
Thou ermined judge, pull off that sable cap!
What! Cans’t thou lie, and take thy morning nap?
Peep thro’ the casement; see the gallows there:
Thy work hangs on it; could not mercy spare?
What had he done? Ask crippled Talleyrand,
Ask Beckford, Courtenay, all the motley band
Of priest and laymen, who have shared his guilt
(If guilt it be) then slumber if thou wilt;
What bonds had he of social safety broke?
Found’st thou the dagger hid beneath his cloak?
He stopped no lonely traveller on the road;
He burst no lock, he plundered no abode;
He never wrong’d the orphan of his own;
He stifled not the ravish’d maiden’s groan.
His secret haunts were hid from every soul,
Till thou did’st send thy myrmidons to prowl,
And watch the prickings of his morbid lust,
To wring his neck and call thy doings just.

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