smoked chili/lemon-roasted pork chop; potatoes; radicchio

The entrée was a pair of simple pork chops. I’d prepared them almost the same way for many years, with slight variations in seasonings, but what pork chops they turned out to be!

I hadn’t been able to locate small chops in the Union Square Greenmarket for months, and at first I was disappointed again when I checked out the butcher display case at Flatiron Eataly on my way home Friday.  There I only found chops weighing almost a full pound, but I went with the alternative suggested by one of the butchers, a pair of thick boneless chops, since they weighed only about 8 ounces each. My prejudice is for cuts which retain the bone, both for the appearance and the taste (although I’ve seen discussions which question whether retaining the bone has anything to do with how good the meat tastes), but our dinner experience last night makes me re-examine it.

This was our first pork dinner since returning from Berlin. I have to say, while we had some excellent meals of pork while there, this was better than any of them (although, to be fair, we never had anything like simple chops). It was also better than any I had prepared in the past myself, using this basic recipe. I can’t account for either of these superlatives.

  • two thick 8-ounce tied boneless Berkshire pig Autumn’s Harvest Farm pork chops from Flatiron Eataly, rinsed, dried thoroughly, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, plus a very small amount of crushed smoked dried jalapeño pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm, seared quickly in a heavy oval enameled cast-iron pan, one small halved Mexican organic lemon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market squeezed over the top of each (after which the lemon was left in the pan between them, cut side down), the chops placed inside a 400º oven for about 13 minutes altogether (flipped halfway through, the lemon halves squeezed over them once again and again on the bottom of the pan), removed from the oven and arranged on 2 plates, the few juices that remained poured over the top of each, the chops garnished with garlic flowers from Alewife Farm
  • twelve ounces or so of ‘white potatoes’ from Jersey Farm Produce at our local 23rd Street Chelsea Down to Earth Farmers Market, scrubbed, boiled unpeeled in generously-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm large vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed with a little whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and tossed again after adding some scissored fresh dill flowers from Lucky Dog Organic Farm
  • one medium head of radicchio from Norwich Meadows Farm, sliced broadly and sautéed until barely wilted inside a large, high-sided tin-lined copper pot with a little olive oil in which half a dozen cut up garlic scapes from Norwich Meadows Farm had already been heated until they had softened, seasoned with salt and black pepper, finished with barely a splash of white balsamic vinegar and arranged on the plates
  • the wine was an Oregon (Willamette Valley/Dundee Hills) white, Oregon Pinot Blanc 2016, ordered directly from Erath
  • the music was Verdi’s 1847 opera, ‘Macbeth’, Claudio Abbado conducting the Milan Teatro alla Scala Orchestra and the Milan Teatro alla Scala Chorus, with Giovanni Foiani, Shirley Verrett, Stefania Malagú, Placido Domingo, among others