Awesome Pork Chops

Lemon Chops -n- Rosemary Taters


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Chops:

10 Bone-In Pork Loin Chops - 3/4 to 1 inch thick

Brine:

1/4 cup salt (1/2 cup if you use jewy kosher salt)
1 cup brown sugar
4 small yellow onions, diced
1 handfull of diced garlic chives (8 cloves of garlic, peeled crushed and chopped)
1 lemons worth of zest
2 tablespoons rosemary leaves
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
10 cups boiling water

For grill or skillet:

Olive oil
Lemon Pepper

You will need a flat iron grill or a big iron skillet and a cookie sheet.


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Taters:

6 potatoes
6 yellow onions
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon pepper
2 teaspoons seasoned salt
1 tablespoon crushed rosemary
fresh ground black pepper to taste

You will need a cookie sheet.


How To:


Day One - Brine:

Because we're going to brine these chops to make them truly moist and delicious, this is a two part recipe. On the first day you brine, on the second you cook.

To make the brine, chop the garlic chives (or garlic) and onions nice and small. You don't quite need to mince them but a rough dicing is good. You're going for surface area. More surface area equals a better flavor infusion into your brine.



Grate the zest off the lemon with a potato peeler. A whole lemon's worth of zest is good for this recipe. Just keep scraping it until the whole peel is pretty much gone.



Bring water to a boil in a deep pot and add the sugar and salt, then all of the solids. Measure them out beforehand so you can dump everything in at once because you don't want to let it boil for more than a minute or two as that just mushes your greens and you'll hate yourself when you have to pick excessive amounts of them off the chops before cooking.



Stir everything in and cut the heat. Let your brine completely cool to room temp. While it's cooling, bring your chops out of the fridge and let them get to room temp as well. They should both be about the same temp for the next step. You'll get a better brine infusion into the meat that way. I'm not sure why, but you do. Perhaps our resident scientist can tell us why?

When the brine is completely cool, immerse the pork chops into it, one at a time. I like to put them in one at a time because that way I know that 100% of the surface was wetted as they went in and there won't be any pockets of air between the chops. Use a plate to weigh them all down so they stay completely submerged.




Cover it up and throw it into the fridge to mingle for 24 hours.

Day Two - Get Cookin'

Preheat oven to 450F.

Start your taters by peeling and quartering your onions. You want them in big chunks so they don't all burn up.



Wash and cut taters into nice bite sized chunks. Leave the skin on.



Put the onions and tater in a large bowl and put the oil on them, then cover with spices.



I like to use a smaller bowl that will just fit inside the larger one to allow me to shake the mixture like a margarita. It covers great that way.





Put that on a sheet and throw it in the middle of the oven. Set your timer for one hour. We want to get them nice and crispy.



Now, you can take a few minutes to set the table, scratch your meep and maybe drink a beer because you don't need to start the chops until the taters have been cooking for 30 minutes.

Preheat your flat iron, ot skillet to highest heat and when the taters have been cooking for 30 minutes start searing chops. You want them to turn golden brown. It won't take long, maybe 4 minutes or less per side.



Once they're seared, put them of a sheet. They should look like this.



When they're all seared, and the taters have 15 minutes left to cook, throw the chops in the oven on the rach beneath the taters.

Once the taters are done, the chops will be too.



Toss on some minced chives and tomato for garnish and enjoy!