Smother em ... with pork: smothered pork chops

Ciao tutti. Annalena took a brief vacation from writing, because she has been busy with many tasks, including preparing a birthday dinner for thirteen (or was it fourteen? After her sixth drink, things got a little confusing). This, however, is a dish she made last week, and it is one that is good anytime.

For reasons that are unclear to me, "smothered" dishes seem to be associated with southern cooking, and usually they involve chicken. In brief, you put the protein, somewhat precooked, in with vegetables, and then cover the pan and cook, with no added liquid, until the vegetables are soft and you have a bit of juice. And that's "smothered" cooking.

Other cultures have similar dishes. Italian cooking, for example, Annalena's strong suit, has "guazetto," which is a name for a category of stews. Cooking "in umido" means sweating the food, and again, that's one where the stewing happens. The ingredients here are quintessentially American cooking , however. You would not see pork chops in classical Italian cooking, but there's nothing wrong with good food.

Again, I made this in late summer, but you could make this any time of year. You would vary the vegetables if you cook seasonally, but now, we are in the midst of the primacy of peppers, so, go for it.

You will need four, large pork chops. I prefer them to be boneless, but if you like them with the bone, by all means. And, to review, we salt our proteins the night before we cook them, remember? Hmmmm?

The night of dinner, slice up three large red peppers, into thick pieces, and also thinly slice four, medium sized, white onions. You want about a pound of onions. Put those veggies to the side, and put a few tablespoons of olive oil into a big pan which you can cover. When the oil is hot, add the pork chops, and brown them well, on both sides. It will probably take about 8 minutes in all for you to do this.

You may be questioning the use of oil with pork, which is of course a very fatty meat, and indeed ,this is a fair question. You use the fat because even the fattiest of meat does not immediately give off its fat, so if you put the pork into a dry pan, you will burn it. The same will happen with bacon. The exceptions of which Annalena is aware are duck breasts, and foie gras, which both can be cooked in a dry pan, and should be.

After your chops have browned, you will have way more fat than you need. Now, you can pour off all but about three tablespoons. If you are uncertain how to know there are three tablespoons left, well, spoon out three tablespoons, get rid of the rest, and add the fat back to the pan.

Easy, huh? Now add your peppers and onions and stir them in the fat. They will begin to cook, but will not get very soft immediately.

They WILL soften, however, when you do what follows. Put the chops back in the pan, on top of the vegetables, lower the heat, and cover the pan tightly. You want everything to cook for about ten minutes. When you come back to the pan, the onions will have cooked to almost nothing, and the peppers will be ridiculously soft.

Now, what Annalena likes to do at this point, is to turn it into a sweet and sour dish. She does this by adding half a cup of cider vinegar and a quarter cup of honey, mixed together, to the pan, and turning up the heat, until the vinegar has evaporated. The acidity and the sweetness will remain, and they will be in the vegetables for the most part.

Switch it up a little. Use some other vegetables, add some herbs, like rosemary, for example, and let Annalena know if it works for you.