More experimental cooking tonight. We had some pork escalopes, so I tried a variation on Normandy style.
Pork Escalopes with Apple, Onion and Sage
I used …
Enough Pork Escalopes (about 5-10mm thick)
2 slightly under-ripe Cox’s Apples
Bunch of Scallions
Handful of fresh Sage Leaves
Half glass of Armagnac (Calvados would be better)
Salt, Pepper and Olive Oil
Large knob of Butter
And this is what I did …
- Clean the scallions and cut into roughly 7 cm lengths, using as much of the green top as possible.
- Peel and chop the apples into quarters, then each quarter into four lengthways slices. Toss these in the liquor (to stop them browning) and set aside with the scallions.
- Wash the sage leaves, bruise them slightly and add to the scallion/apple mix.
- Heat some olive oil in a good frying pan and sear the pork on both sides.
- Add the apple/scallion/sage mix and any remaining liquor. Don’t worry if it flambés, it’ll just improve the flavour (and test your smoke alarms).
- Cook, with a lid on if you wish, turning the pork occasionally until it is done — probably 5 minutes for thin escalopes.
- Season to taste and transfer the pork and most of the apple/scallion mix into a warmed serving dish to keep warm.
- Add the butter to the remaining pan juices (plus a bit of apple/scallion) and quickly reduce to a thicker sauce. Pour over the pork.
- Serve with steamed new potatoes and a mixed salad.
Comments …
It tasted good, but it didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped.
The apple was good and stayed in whole slices which, with the scallions, were slightly sweet and tangy on the plate, setting off the pork nicely. That was what I wanted, hence why I had used Cox’s; something like a Bramley apple would be more tart (nice for me) but would also disintegrate.
One apple might have been enough for two of us. The apple/scallion mix made quite a lot of juice; too much to reduce quickly and thicken with butter to a thick sauce. This also meant that neither the pork not the apple slices browned at all, as I had hoped. Next time I’m inclined to cook the apple/scallion separately so it might caramelise slightly. And having ended up with too much liquid it needed a little cream, rather than butter, to make it into the right Normandy-style sauce.
An alternative approach might be to breadcrumb the pork — using sage & onion stuffing mix would work well! But then you definitely don’t want much juice so you’ll need to cook the apple separately.
And it would work just as well with any other style of potato and with hot vegetables rather than salad — depending solely on your preference at the time.
Verdict …
Not quite what I had hoped for, but by no means a failure. As Noreen so politely said: I’ve eaten far worse in restaurants!