Pork Chops with Sweet and Sour Cabbage

Thick, center-cut pork chops... YUM.  Boy there are some pieces of meat that you just CAN'T resist picking up and nibbling (or flat out gnawing) the bone.  This pork chop is your excuse!  I had half a head of red cabbage (which is actually purple) and a bunch of brussels sprouts.  I figured a sweet and sour braised cabbage would go really well with pork - and sort of take the place of a heavy sauce.   I figured I would do a roast tater along with the roast pork - and roast the sprouts off too!  For roast taters or sprouts - I like to blanch them first so that they can crisp up quickly in a super hot oven.  One last flourish; I made a flavorful herby-garlicky, olive oil mix to coat the pork before popping it in the oven.

Pork Chops and Cabbage
2 center cut pork chops (the porterhouse cut of pork)
1/2 a head of red cabbage, shredded
1 bunch of Brussels sprouts, bottoms trimmed
4 small red potaotes, quartered
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 clove of garlic, peeled
bunch of mixed herbs (I used basil, parsley, rosemary, oregano, thyme)
glug of apple cider vinegar
splash of chicken stock
squeeze of honey
spritz of lemon
olive oil
salt
pep

Chops:
Whiz up the herbs, garlic, lemon, a glug of oil, pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper in the cuisinart.  Pour over the chops.  Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees, and get your baking sheet ready with foil.  Pop your chops on the pan and into the oven for 20 minutes.  Do your poke test to check done-ness.  You want it JUST cooked through, the meat should be on the border of not giving to the poke.  Although, these days eating pink pork is acceptable - the big deal is making sure your pork reaches an internal temperature of 150-155 degrees F.  At 150 degrees it is hot enough to kill the Trichinella parasite (this parasite infects less than 1% of hogs in the U.S., but safety first.)  Various resources will site varying internal temperatures - but Ruth Reichl says 150 will work... so if it's good enough for Ruth. 

Cabbage:
Put a big pan on high heat and dribble in some oil - pop in your onion, salt and pepper, and swirl around until they begin to soften.  Pop your cabbage in too - saute until the cabbage begins to soften also.  Deglaze with a splash of chicken stock.  Trickle in some vinegar and a squeeze of the honey - swirl and taste for balance.  Should be sweet and sour, one not outshining the other.  Put the lid on and turn the fire down so that the cabbage will slowly simmer and continue to cook until the pork is ready.

Veggies:
Pop the taters into boiling, salted water.  After 5 minutes add the sprouts.  After another 5 minutes drain them both, toss them with the smallest amount of oil possible to skimpily coat the lot, sprinkle in the salt and pep and pop them on the baking tray for the last 5 minutes with the chops.  If they need longer than the last 5 minutes of the chops - pull out the chops (they need to rest so that the juices can redistribute and recollect anyway before serving) and crank up the heat to broil to get the veggies properly browned. 

Pile up the cabbage and serve the chop nestled into the luscious pile so that all the juices swirl together - dress up the rest of the plate with your taters and sprouts.  ENJOY!