Technically defined as “thin cuts of meat, sautéed and cooked in a rich sauce,” the scaloppini fashion for cooking pork, chicken, and veal is simple and elegant. In the midst of my stew, soup and comfort food wintertime phase, I ere toward the side of something fresh and light in betwixt the heaviness comfort food affords. Enter my Skinny Pork Chop Scaloppini.
Lemon, garlic, thyme, rosemary, parsley and white wine all meld and mélange together to form a succulent sauce with the renderings of the thinly slice pork cutlets.
Why pork for this dish? Well, to quote my Mimi, “If I have to eat one more piece of chicken, I may scream! There IS another white meat!” Upon delivery of such a statement, Mimi and I drove to a fast food chain and scarffed down cheeseburgers and fries. Sometimes there is nothing better. Back to the dish at hand!
Like my Mimi, I do like a break from chicken and thinly sliced pork cutlets fit the bill. Veal too is luscious in this manner but many folks have an aversion to said meat; thus, the pork cutlets make do marvelously. This cut of meat is economical, easy to handle and the perfect portion to plate. They brown well, yielding that flavor as a delightful element for the sauce. Ahhhhh – the sauce!
It’s rhubarb season. I took me a while but I have discovered rhubarb. And what I have discovered is that I like them. I like them in a crisp, in a buckle, in a muffin, stewed with other fruit, and in a pie. The word rhubarb was a turn off for me. I don’t know why. I just had a visceral aversion to it.
My girlfriend took one bite of these and said, “this tastes like Mac ‘n Cheese”. Voila, the Mac ‘n Cheese cracker was born.
When a wine is described as "jammy" I always think of blackberries. Rich, ripe, fruity flavors so intense they almost taste more cooked than fresh. Blackberries, when fully ripe and sweet, not sour, taste like jam to me. Jammy also means "lucky" according to an Australian English dictionary I recently consulted. I think one slice of this cake will make you feel very lucky indeed! I certainly feel lucky to have gotten the berries from my friend Alton who brought them back from his mountain cabin hideaway, Shadow Woods.
Modern entertaining is all about having fun with your guests while enjoying the food. It's not about being chained to the stove, never being allowed to mingle for a moment. For cocktail parties, especially around holiday time, I'm always looking for recipes that can be prepared in advance or put together in just minutes on the same day of the get-together. Plus I plan around using some store-bought items, like cheese, prosciutto, or olives.