Back when I was a kid my mom got a little ‘experimental’ in her cooking. Admittedly, her experimentation was limited due to my dad’s loathing of any spice other than salt, pepper, or the odd bay leaf on a roast which was then cooked until ‘beef dust’ scattered when the poor, REALLY dead thing was carved. I remember some of mom’s experiments fondly, some less so; her foray into orange pork chops was not a resounding success, as I recall – though that could’ve been because it didn’t take ketchup too well (hey – I was 10, what do you want?). Still, the concept of orange and pork chops always ‘sounded’ good to me, even after my own dismal experiments.
I think I’ve gotten through that sound barrier with this recipe, which I adapted from ‘The Grilling Bible’ – a handy reference we picked up when we got the Weber a few years ago. I grilled the chops inside and served them with yellow rice, balsamic green beans and a tossed salad.
INGREDIENTS
•1-1/2 cup orange juice
•3 tbsp + 1 tbsp vegetable oil
•Salt
•Peppercorns
•2cloves garlic, crushed
•Cayenne, parsley and chive
•4 pork chops
•1/2 cup sliced green onion
•1 tsp grated fresh orange peel – about 1 good sized orange
•1 tbsp or so of sweet Thai chili sauce
Make a marinade by combining the orange juice with 3 tablespoons of the oil, some salt, the peppercorns, garlic and herbs.
Take 3/4 cup of the marinade (save the remainder for the sauce) and pour over chops in a resealable plastic bag. Squish around and marinate for at least an hour – I prefer overnight.
Remove chops and discard marinade and bag. Grill approximately 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chops, turning half way through.
Heat the last tbsp of oil in a skillet, then add the scallions and orange peel and cook over medium heat for a minute or two. Stir in the unused marinade and the chili sauce, reduce heat to low and cook until reduced by half. Serve over the chops (I liked it over the rice and the green beans too).
The original recipe didn’t call for chili sauce, used ground pepper, and called for thyme instead of my cayenne/parsley/chive mix (though, in truth, I’d have used Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute if I hadn’t run out – nope, I’m not going to link to it, I’ve talked about this stuff enough – just buy a jar, you won’t be sorry – oh – and pick up a jar or three for me, too ‘K? thanks).