Juicy Pork Chops with Roasted Veggies
If you are trying to avoid the shoe-leather texture in a pork chop, this quick recipe can be a solution.
To ensure the quality of the meat, opt for pasture-raised pork to avoid unnecessary growth hormones or antibiotics sneaking into your body.
After you rinse your pork chop under the running tap water, make sure you dry it with paper towels in preparation for adding seasonings later on. In addition, as you cook your pork, the heating process will allow the meat to produce its own juice. Removing excess moisture allows the meat to produce its juice with more concentrated flavor.
To make the seasonings, try mixing thyme and Worcestershire sauce. I find that thyme goes really well with pork. And I love the fact that Worcestershire sauce adds a touch of sourness to the meat, which helps increase your appetite.
Getting ready to sear your pork chop on a frying pan? This is something very important to remember: use avocado oil for high-temperature cooking. A lot of recipes suggest using olive oil for cooking or baking at a temperature of over 350 °F, which is not a good idea. Olive oil has a smoking point of 320 °F. In other words, if you cook with olive oil with a temperature that is over 320 °F, free radicals and toxic fumes may be generated, leading to inflammation and other health problems (source).
Meanwhile, I highly recommend you add mixed veggies while you cook. As mentioned earlier, the pork chop releases some juice while being cooked. To make the best use of the meat juice, I’d like to add vegetables that can well absorb the juice. Potatoes and white cabbage are my top choices.
If the potatoes are organic, keep the skin. It gives your body more dietary fiber, which improves your digestion and feeds the good bacteria inside of you.
Adding bell peppers is also another great option. Yellow or orange ones remain juicy and crunchy, even after they are cooked. However, green peppers become soft and mushy easily after being cooked. What’s more, the mild sweetness from the yellow and orange peppers go really well with the tiny bit of sourness from the Worcestershire sauce.
Because of the above reasons, I prefer using yellow or orange peppers. You will know why I love it so much after you have a bite of the meat and the chopped peppers altogether (yum!).
Here are some serving suggestions: incorporate lots of non-starchy vegetables for more fiber intake, raw foods like salads for live enzymes to improve your digestion, and fermented vegetables for probiotics to boost your body’s overall health.
Protein, fiber, good fats, raw foods, and probiotics (from either fermented foods or supplements) are daily essentials to your body. I always try to make sure I have five of them in my meals every day. And you can get all five if you follow my suggestions above and in the recipe.
Finally, when you cook, play some music (I’ve recently fallen in with Michael Bubble’s songs as I cook), enjoy the prep work, and put your heart into the process. You’ll notice that this does make a difference in the taste of your meal.
Happy cooking!
Juicy Pork Chop with Roasted Veggies
Serves 2 (this assumes you have a lot of veggies and you are on a plant-based diet.)
Time for preparation
- 10 minutes
Time for cooking
- 20 minutes
Ingredients
- Pork chop(bone in), 1 lb (pastured raised meat is preferred)
- Seasoning
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (color peppers other than green ones are preferred)
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil (ideal for high temperature cooking. Olive oil is not recommended)
- 8 ounces small potatoes, washed and cut into 1-inch chunks (if potatoes are organic, I prefer to leave the skin unpeeled for extra fiber)
- 0.5 pound white cabbage, cord removed, chopped into pieces
- 1 cup bell peppers, stems and seeds removed, chopped
Instructions
- Put the oven-safe frying pan in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 °F; wash the pork chop and dry it with paper towels; combine seasonings and marinate the pork; prepare all the vegetable ingredients.
- After oven is preheated, use a mitt to carefully remove frying pan out of the oven; rest it over medium or medium-to-high heat on the stove top; add avocado oil; grab the handle with the mitt and slightly tilt the pan from side to side so that the oil covers the bottom of the pan; lay the chop on the pan with a tong and add potatoes; sear the side of the chop for 2-3 minutes (or till you see the side turns golden); flip it over and sear the other side for the same amount of time. While searing the chop, make sure to turn the potatoes 2-3 times to keep them from getting stuck to the pan. Lift the chop with the tong to sear the outer edge of the chop, too; add chopped bell peppers and cabbage and blend the vegetables together until peppers, cabbage, potatoes, and meat juice are mixed well.
- Use the mitt to transfer the pan back to the oven for roasting for 10 minutes; turn off heat and let it sit in the oven for 5 minutes; serve with salads, lightly sauted leafy greens, or a few tablespoons of fermented vegetables.
“Meal preparation should be an unhurried, peaceful and joyful process.”
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