Sous Vide Pork Chops with Sun Dried Tomato Polenta
This is nice stick to bones kind of meal. Reasonably healthy, but absolutely hardy and good for the soul. Most of the time is passive, so actually comes together pretty easily.
As we do with many of our proteins, I like to buy in the bulk or family packs and then break down into individual or actual family sized portions. I season them and/or add a marinade and then freeze for future use. When my head is actually working, I either add a label or write on the plastic with a sharpie what the protein is (sometimes can be tricky to be sure) and what kind of marinade if using. I have a vacuum sealer which is great, well wrapped plastic wrap or freezer ziplocks works just fine. However, if you are going to sous vide, sealing them is key, whether you do so with a vacuum sealer or through the water dispersion method. You are looking to sous vide these chops not poach them.
One of the best aspects of sous vide is along as you know the right temperature and hit the minimum safe time, it’s pretty dang hard to screw things up and can give you a tremendous amount of flexibility. I like to get it started when I get home in the evening, then whether we eat at 6pm or 9pm, it really doesn’t matter.
What I love about this recipe is that you get a bit of an asian feel to the pork chop from the marinade, but a southern italian feel with the polenta. It works gether surprising well, at least I think so.
Pork Chop with Sun-Dried Tomato Polenta
Equipment
- immersion circulator (if using sous vide technique)
Ingredients
Pork Chop
- 2 lbs Pork chop I like bone-in, but either will do
- 3 tbsp soy sauce low sodium preferred
- 3 tbsp marin sweet vermouth as an alternative
- 1 tbsp oil I like olive oil, but any light oil will do
Sun Dried Tomato Polenta (w or w/o spinach)
- 3 oz sun dried tomatoes
- 1/2 cup water boiling
- 1 shallot 1/4 white or yellow onion for alternative
- 1 medium garlic clove about the size of your thumb
- 3 oz spinach about two handfuls
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Salt & Pepper to taste
- 1 cup polenta (aka course corn meal)
- 4 cup chicken broth Water is fine, just add a touch extra salt
- 3 tbsp butter unsalted
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese about 2oz if grinding yourself
Instructions
- Bring water bath up to 140 F. If pork chops are sealed, drop them in, or use the water displacement approach and clip to the side. They need at least 1 hour at 140, but can go for 4-5hrs without changing the texture, so better to start early than late on this component.
- Slice dried tomatoes into julienne strips and move into a small heat proof dish (e.g. a coffee cup)
- Add 1/2 cup of boiling or very hot water until just covered. Let rest.
- chop shallot (or onion) fairly small (think close to mince). Mince the garlic. Set both aside.
- Bring stock or water to a boil. Whisking as you go, pour polenta into liquid. Turn temperature to low and cover. Stirring about every 5 min. Total cooking time until the grains are soft is about 30 minutes (ie. so make sure your pork has been cooking for at least 30 minutes before you start the polenta).
- Heat olive oil in a saute pan. Add shallots until they begin to soften. Add garlic, stirring until fragrant, add tomatoes and soaking water. When water starting to boil, add spinach. When spinach is wilted remove pan from heat.
- Optional – you can brown the pork chops in a hot pan (I prefer my cast iron) or with a blow torch (I use this one from Lowes) on a sheet pan (put it on the range or somewhere heat proof).
- Mix tomato-shallot-spinach mix into the polenta. Add the ground or shredded parmesan and mix. Add the butter and mix until melted.
- Serve about 1/4 on each plate, topped with pork chop. Top with parmesan shreds (e.g. use a vegetable peeler with the cheese block).
