Today, I ate the best pork chop ever.
Well, it was close to the best ever. Best that I’ve ever made for sure.
I bought what is called a Rib Eye de Cerdo, or a rib eye of pork from Wild Fork, and cooked it for an hour in my sous vide set up.
I spritzed both sides with a bit of olive oil, seasoned it on both sides with S&P, garlic powder, onion powder, MSG, (if you don’t use this you need to research it because it’s amazing), along with a sprig of fresh rosemary that I happened to have in the fridge. I put it in a Ziplock bag, got rid of the air by immersing the bag, et. al., in the water of the sous vide set up, closed the zip lock, and let it cook slowly at 140ºF for the aforementioned 1 hour.
After all of that, I took it out of the bag, and patted it dry, all the while heating a small cast iron skillet to a medium high heat. When the pan was smoking, I added a tablespoon of both olive oil for cooking, (not EVOO, as it has a lower smoke point), and unsalted butter. I added the chop, seared it with the oil/butter combo, for about 2 minutes to form a nice crust, then added the sprig of rosemary that I used in the sous vide portion of the recipe. I basted the chop for about 30 seconds, maybe a bit more, removed the rosemary, took ahold of the chop with tongs, and stood it up on its side to sear the fat cap.
I plated the chop with half of a prior baked potato that I reheated in the microwave and covered with my homemade fermented ranch dressing, then added a side salad of Romaine lettuce having multiple spritzes of EVOO, and Balsamic vinegar.
The chop was huge, about 180g, and yes, I ate it all because I usually eat only twice a day, and I was getting hungry at this point. The potato was 140g, before the embellishments, and the salad was 120g. Nirvana.
I have to tell you that immediately after removing the chop from the bag, I added a 500g. pork belly to the same bag, and am now slow cooking at 76ºC for 15 hours. So, tomorrow afternoon, another pig fest.
What’s not to like?
Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.