This approach to an excellent pork chop has almost become formulaic in my kitchen;  it’s the changing details and accompaniments that keep it fresh, as well as the variety of good wines pair well with it.

• two bone-in loin pork chops from Flying Pig Farms, thoroughly dried, seasoned with salt and pepper, seared in a heavy enameled cast-iron pan, half of a small, almost-sweet organic lemon squeezed over them, then left in the pan, roasted in a 400º oven for about 14 minutes (flipped halfway through and the lemon squeezed over them once again), removed from the oven, sprinkled with chopped lovage from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, and the pan juices spooned over the top
• two large-ish Maine cherry, ‘cocktail’ tomatoes from Whole Foods, added to the pan with the chops near the end of their time in the oven, removed, and sprinkled with savory from Berried Treasures
• flat green or Romano beans from Norwich Meadows Farm, par-boiled, drained, dried (shaking over a flame the pan in which they had cooked), reheated in a bit of olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper
• the wine was a New Zealand white, Whitehaven Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2014
• the music was that of George Tsontakis [it was the night before the Greek referendum, and although the composer was born in Queens, we enjoyed the appositeness of a choice which had been entirely unconscious]

It may not have been a typical American Fourth of July breakfast, but what passes for ‘typical’ in America these days?

It was a holiday, and I had some excellent fresh eggs on hand, a small amount of puntarelle left over from an earlier meal (also a bit of the anchovy dressing I had used), half of a small shallot (also remaining from an earlier meal), and part of a loaf of excellent sourdough bread, now two-days old.  I didn’t want to spend too much time putting together the first meal on a day we had decided to revisit the Whitney Museum;  we were also getting pretty hungry, and this improvisation looked like it wouldn’t take much time.

It was very good, and it hadn’t really taken much time at all.

I think what I did may have been my own invention; if I can trust my invented Italian, it would be described as uova fritte con scalogni; puntarelle con acciughe [fried eggs topped with shallots cooked in butter until just tender, served with an Italian chicory dressed with anchovy, garlic, and vinegar].

• the eggs, fried sunny side up, were from Tamarack Hollow Farm, and the shallot, cooked until softened, was from John D. Madura Farm
• the puntarelle was from Paffenroth Gardens, prepared in the Roman manner
• the toast was from a loaf of a sourdough bâtard from She Wolf Bakery, at the Greenmarket
• the music was Joan Tower’s ‘Made in America’, a fantasy on the theme of  ‘America the Beautiful’

 

Note to self and to readers:  There’s usually no accounting for why some outings with a familiar recipe are more successful than the others, but we both thought that each of the elements in this entrée exceeded all earlier versions, and the reason I’d already repeated their formulas so often is that they were already so delicious (and subject to variations suggested by the availability of ingredients).

 

Maybe it’s because I’m very much a child of the 50s (Xiphias gladius were big way back then, very big), but I’ve always loved swordfish.  I’d like to think I’ve grown up a bit since first experiencing the magnificent critter, and I was never much taken with its likeness repeated in porcelain or metal gimcracks often perched above bulky television consoles, but swordfish have always carried some serious weight within my epicurean pantheon, even before I left the Midwest. I think it was the only item on the menu in those days that could persuade an auto baron to order anything other than steak or prime rib in a serious restaurant, like Detroit’s Joe Muer’s, or The London Chop House.

The mercury scare which appeared at some time after I left the Great Lakes environment for deeper waters bummed me out, because now, when I could develop a more intimate relationship with this noble fish, it virtually disappeared from both menus and fish markets (probably a welcome development for the swordfish themselves).

And then the scare abated, but I still couldn’t find much to appreciate about it in my restaurant experiences.  As in the case of tuna, I just assumed its unsavoriness was the fault of the fish.  It was only in the last decade or so that I learned how not to cook it, meaning, to be sure, not to cook it in the way it was cooked in the 1950s, and, in many places, long after.

This meal employed one of the two recipes I have followed for years; the other one is actually even simpler, and also comfortable with variations.

• one 15-ounce swordfish steak from Blue Moon Fish Company, halved, rubbed with a mixture of herbs (savory, lovage, chives, parsley, rosemary, and thyme), which had been chopped together with sea salt, then mixed with some freshly-ground pepper, minced garlic and the zest from an only-slightly-tart lemon from Trader Joe’s, moistened with a bit of olive oil, then pan-grilled and finished with a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of more olive oil
• three small-ish Japanese eggplant from Bodhitree Farm, split lengthwise, scored, brushed with a mixture of oil, finely-chopped organic garlic from Trader Joe’s, and finely-chopped basil from Keith’s Farm, seasoned with salt and pepper, and then pan-grilled, turning once
• the wine was a Spanish white, Finca Os Cobatos Godello Monterrei 2013
• the music was Francesco Cavalli, ‘La Didone’, performed by Europa Gallant, Fabio Biondi conducting

 

This is what Bodhitree’s box of eggplant looked like in the Greenmarket on Wednesday: