On Why I'm the Jew least likely to keep kosher, or Delicious Braised Pork Chops

I come from a long line of proud, pork-eating Jewish women. From my grandmother, who is said to have placed a roast ham in the refrigerator every time her orthodox father-in-law visited (so there wouldn't be any ambiguity about the trafe status of the kitchen), to my mother who never met a BLT she didn't like, we are pig-meat lovers. I've mostly given up feeling bad about it, but sometimes I get a little sad and then I need to comfort myself with something delicious, like a piece of bacon.

Tonight I was facing a bit of a cabbage crisis. I had purchased two large heads - a green and a red - anticipating a kimchi-o-rama, but have yet to get up the gumption for that process. Rumors were starting to spread about the deteriorating state of the green and and I knew something had to be done. As is so often the case in my house, pork came to the rescue! I pulled some chops out of the freezer, rustled up some apples and onions, and created what I'm calling:

Pawk Chawps and Apple/Cabbage Braise

2 inch-think pork chops (really all quantities are loose and goosey here - cook as many chops as you want)
about 3 cups of shredded cabbage, mix of red and green
about 2 cups of sliced onions, again mix of red and white
3 large cloves of garlic, chopped
2-3 apples quartered and sliced
1 cup white wine
3/4 cup prune juice (yes! the secret ingredient)
1/2 tsp of thyme
1/2 tsp of sage
salt and pepper
vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 300. Start by sauteeing the onions, garlic, cabbage and apples in a large dutch oven that has a close fitting lid. You may have to do this in batches - I did all the onions and garlic first, and then the cabbage and apples. They should be softened, but don't need to be fully cooked. Remove from the pan to a bowl.

Add some more oil to the dutch oven and get it nice and hot. Brown the pork chops well on both sides - about 3 -4 mins per side, depending upon how big they are. Again, you may need to do this in batches and you don't want to fully cook the chops, just get them nicely browned. Remove to a plate.

With the heat still on, add the wine and prune juice to the pot and stir well to deglaze . Now add the veg back to the pan and mix well with the sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let cook for a minute or two. Turn off the heat. Add the chops back to the pan, tucking them into the veg so they are covered. Put the lid on the dutch oven, and put the whole thing into the oven. Roast for 80 to 90 minutes, checking after 60. The meat should be tender enough to pull away with a fork. Taste the vegetables and sauce for seasoning, adding more salt or pepper if necessary. Serve the chops with lots of veg and sauce. This would be great with potatoes or spaetzle.

This dish is a great example of flavor balance. You've got the bitter with cabbage, the sour with the wine, sweet with apples and prune juice, salt-y with salt, umami with meat. The onions and garlic add depth and sweetness, too. Most often when I find a dish is lacking flavor, it's a problem with sweetness or sourness (occasionally with fat, but that's rarely a problem with my cooking!). It took me a long time to recognize how important sweet-balance is to getting good flavor, but once I caught on to that, I started experimenting with all kinds of ways to add sweetness and depth to my dishes. Juices are great for this, but also dried fruit (raisins or prunes would have been interesting addition to this braise). Jams and jellies are also fun to experiment with, especially when reducing a sauce, as they can really add a depth of flavor that's later hard to pinpoint in the dish. So next time you've got a soup or stew that seems to be missing something, try foraging in the fridge or cabinet for a touch of fruity sweetness. You'll often find it was just what you needed.

And before I sign off for the night, let's raise our glasses to pork - l'chaim!