I based this recipe off of some inspiration from my decades-old Southern Living Cook Book and an old tattered Cajun work called River Road Recipes.
One of the most interesting things about the way a person cooks is how their environment saturates their cooking. For example, my mama grew up in Baytown, Tx, so she had a bit of Cajun influence, but her cooking was mostly Southern-American and Campbell’s kitchen. I grew up near Houston, Tx, so I was exposed to lots of different cultures. I also grew up during the dawn of the internet, so I have both old-fashioned books and an Internet full of blogs to pull inspiration from.
Both my husband and I grew up in homes where mealtime is family time, and we have passed that tradition on to our kids. Three squares a day plus snacks, all eaten at the dining room table. This lifestyle has an important influence on my cooking style, because presentation, comfort, taste, and variety are all up to me.
If I were to label my cooking, I would say it’s a unique Texas blend of authentic Mexican and Southern-American with the occasional Cajun dish thrown in, and we go through ethnic seasons based on the time of year. We enjoy Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese American dishes for a change of pace, and I rotate through my seasonings to keep the English round of meat-starch-and-green interesting.
Frequently I cook pork with onions until tender, make a gravy and serve with starch. This was our change of pace. It makes a great company meal as well as a family meal. I forgot to take pictures of the finished product because we were so hungry!
I started with large, “thin cut” pork chops (bone-in) and dredged them in plain flour. These I pan-fried in a small amount of olive oil in a nice, deep cast-iron pot. Fry on both sides over a medium-low heat until nice and golden. I layered these in a 9×13″ baking dish.
As you can see below, this process left a lovely deep golden roux base in the pot, perfect for creating my sauce.
Then you add “the Holy Trinity,” which is Cajun for mince onion, green pepper, and celery. I also added two frozen cubes of “da Pope,” aka garlic.
I cooked all these vegetables with a little salt in the oil-and-flour mixture left in the bottom of the iron pot. I also added about 8 ounces of crumbled mushrooms during the sauté stage, along with a lump of butter about 3 tablespoons in size.
Once the veggies had softened, I added 5 ounces or so of (previously frozen) fresh tomato sauce and around twelve ounces of water. It’s better with broth, but I worked with what I had on hand. Simmer all of this for at least 10 minutes. Salt to taste. You want the broth to taste like a hearty vegetable soup, not a watery mess.
Now, at this point I had crying babies, so you’ll have to excuse the lack of pictures. I poured the finished sauce over the meat and covered the dish with aluminum foil. This we baked at 375F for an hour while we made the rice dish and buttered zucchini and aguas frescas (watermelon this time). This produced tender meat and savory sauce to serve with starch and green, and the company was impressed.
What’s on the menu:
-saucy Creole pork chops
-quinoa-and-rice blend, steamed, seasoned with beef soup base
-buttered zucchini
-Aguas fréscas de melón – a Mexican drink consisting of pureed watermelon, lime juice and water. I sweetened with honey and strained over ice.