Chop chop: Veal chops beau sejour

For decades, the New York Times Cookbook has been a mainstay in homes, mine included. Some have described it as a more sophisticated, or a more "East Coast" version of "The Joy of Cooking." Whatever. I used to spend hours when I was a young kid, reading the recipes. I would marvel at the intricacy of some of them: the book included a recipe that taught how to make a gallontine of turkey: you boned it, and filled it with a stuffing that included lots of good things, wrapped it in cheesecloth, steamed it, baked it, etc, etc, etc. I remember beautiful photos of things like eggs in aspic with chervil leaves - even though I had no idea what a chervil leaf was.

Books go out of print, recipes go out of style, but editions stick around. Compare different editions of "The Joy of Cooking," for example. Now, they don't include the directions for prepping squirrel for stew. They used to have wonderful instructions for prepping soft shell crabs, which included a line "cutting away the face," which made me HOWL.

But enough of that book: back to the NY Times cookbook. A new edition is out, under the hand of Amanda Hesser.

Prejudices right up front: I do not like Ms. Hesser's style. I have read her for years. I find her a snob. I find her arrogant, and I find her attitude of "well, you may not be able to do this, but I can" more than a bit too much. But the book, while it carries her imprint on it, is about recipes that the Times has printed and acquired over the years. And this is one of them. I was drawn to it right away, and it's good. I'm going to try it again, with pork chops.

I should tell you I have no idea what "sejour" means, which of course in turn means that people will run to google for this and I will hear from you. Great. Please tell me. And I will tell you how to make this wonderfully easy, delicious recipe, and I will in turn, be catty about the way it is presented.

The recipe calls for six, rack veal chops, 1.5 inches thick, frenched.
Right. A veal chop is about 20 bucks. SO, do the math. Also, the recipe calls for using a pan large enough to hold all six chops. Now, Annalena has a lot of large pans. She could never do six veal chops in one pan. So, here is my advice: do two of them. Keep this as a special occasion dish.

Fill a bag with about a half cup of flour, and a teaspoon of salt. Shake it, and then add the chops, so that they are covered with flour (the recipe says "dredge the chops." If you don't know what this means...).

Now, get 1/4 cup of vegetable oil and 4 tablespoons of butter in your pan, and heat them at medium heat until the butter melts. Add the chops, and brown them. It will probably take about 8 minutes, and get a GOOD sear on them. (Incidentally, these proportions ARE for six chops. Don't worry. When you're doing something like a pan sauce and you're cutting the amount of protein, don't cut the sauce back).

Ok, now that the chops are browned, add six whole cloves of peeled garlic, and press one bay leaf into each chop. Add a few sprigs of fresh thyme to the pan, or a teaspoon of dried, and then cover the pan, lower the heat, and go away for twenty minutes.

When that time has elapsed, uncover the pan, take the chops and put them on a plate. Add 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Move your face back, and stir, until the vinegar evaporates. Won't take long. Then add a half cup of chicken stock and a quarter cup of water. Raise the heat to high, and cook this all down until you have tablespoons of liquid left. It will be rich and syrupy. Strain the solids (those herb bits and the garlic), out of the liquid, or just spoon it out, over the chops, and serve them forth.

This is good. Expensive, but good. That's why I'm trying it with pork chops this week. I bet you could substitute balsamic vinegar for the red wine vinegar too, and I'm going to do that. Maybe I'll give you an update. Maybe you'll try this and come up with some ideas of your own. Please do, and let Annalena know.