Braised Pork Chops with Pineapple Curry Sauce

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Greg Who Cooks

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Braised Pork Chops with Pineapple Curry Sauce

braisedporkchopsq.jpg


4 pork chops, bone-in
curry powder
1 can pineapple rings in pineapple juice
brown sugar
sweet Marsala wine
cream

Sprinkle pork chops with a fair amount of curry powder, then saute them in olive oil until browned (turning only once). Place a pineapple ring on top of each pork chop and fill the center of each ring with about a teaspoon of brown sugar. Pour the pineapple juice from the can around the pork chops and add enough sweet Marsala wine to immerse the lower halves of the pork chops in liquid. Cover and simmer for about 40 minutes until tender. (Do not turn them over.) Add more Marsala as required to keep the chops partly covered in liquid to keep the pan from going dry.

Remove the pork chops and pineapple rings, keep warm in oven. Deglaze your pan juices with cream to make a sauce a la minute, adding more Marsala if necessary. Then serve pork chops topped by pineapple rings covered by the cream sauce.

In the picture above the sauce is a bit darker than usual (I wasn't paying attention to cooking) and the lighting wasn't very good either. I've been experimenting with my camera and not doing very well but I realize I'll never graduate to the next level until I can take good pictures of my concoctions to entice people to try them. This is my first attempt at posting a picture of something I cooked here on the forum. I'll try again soon.
 
It looks like you are trying to do 2 things here-- share your recipe and share your photography by learning as you go.

You probably have the first one down pat. How does this come out> Yes, tasty, but is it too sweet? How much curry do you think to use? I like that you thicken the sauce with a little cream while cooking it down and not add corn starch. I personally don't care for corn starch in sauces ( such as in Chinese dishes).

Now, as far as your first photography attempt. I have no comment on pic size ( different thread). In this instance, I c/p your pic over to "My Pics" so I can blow it up to see better. The plate/ food components are much better defined and clearer looking. So I have these comments, not criticisms. Maybe sprinkle a wee bit of fine snip parsley around the edge of the plate, and once across the top. Or something like that. It better defines the white plate on a white background. There is height ( or is it depth) in your photo, which is not as apparent on the little pic vs the larger image Then perhaps nap with a little less sauce on the plate you are going to shoot, so we can see the difference between the pineapple and the chops. I think there is a difference between the food we eat in front of us vs the food that is photographed. The two are not necessarily presented in the same way. And maybe tuck in a couple of roasted carrot sticks along side. The last part is me. I am of the school that more is better rather than play it simple, and probably has nothing to do with food photography.

Well, I shouldn't talk so much. I don't have a camera and my eyesight is not that good. I appreciate what you are trying to and do show us. Looking forward to you doing it again.
 
Thanks Whiska for the critique. I'm experimenting with a more vague recipe style where individuals are free to interpret the dish in their own manner. If it's too sweet then add less sweet stuff (e.g. use dry Marsala or dry sherry), and use as much curry powder as you like. (Particularly considering there are wide variations in curry powder. I have several kinds and for this recipe I use supermarket curry powder--Spice Islands in this case--rather than my Ca Ri Ni Ando (DD Bell / D&D Gold) Madras curry powder which is way to yowzers! spicy for this dish.)

The suggestions to add a bit of garnish are good. I had swai a la Meuneire tonight and OMG I forgot the parsley!!! (At least I remembered the lemon.)

I have a large investment in good dining ware and plates but alas all I have here in my very modest temporary quarters is several clear glass dishes. I might buy a few clean white plates just for photographic purposes, or perhaps something a bit more stylish, considering plates are cheap in onesey-twosey.

The sauce came out much darker here than my usual rendition. I left it on the burner too long while I was otherwise occupied and it caramelized a bit more than my usual rendition.

I need to do this better if I'm going to advance. Maybe when I get resituated in my next house I'll have a better platform for good photography. Maybe I'll get a better camera too but right now I'm trying to do the best with what I've got.
 
Well, there you go. I didn't realize it was a clear plate in the photo.

It shoots my next suggestion which is to put a place mat, tea towel, a bread board or something to provide contrast underneath the plate.

I don't know the particulars on how well white or white plates take to physically shoooting photos. White is perhaps most versatile for plating and showing off a much greater range of foods.

I have a wide collection of dishes, mostly in broken sets, picked up at garage and yard sales sometimes for nickels per piece. Mostly they coordinate even if the patterns don't match. I don't like eating off the same things every day. My minimum was to buy in twosies, even though I am most usually single. I allowed it to happen because I have lots of cupboard space. Then I had to Quit. I had to admit I accumulate too much stuff. ( I did say in my earlier post I think More is Better and it shows in various ways, :ohmy:)

I also appreciate that you are leaving it up to the cook to adjust how much seasoning or flavor in whatever form, whether it is a dry or sweet marsala or other wine that fits a person's palatte or preference, or even what is at hand. It is what makes us all creative in the kitchen. It's also more my style of cooking. I should have realized this when I read your recipe. Thanks. I gotta try it too.
 
I have four nice sets of plates including service for 9 in a very fancy Asian square/rectangular plate motif (plus various sauce dishes and chopstick rests), and including two very nice sets (one in Mexican motif) that my mother gave me when che went into assisted living. Unfortunately all my good stuff is carefully packed and in storage, so I'm stuck with the clear dish set (expendable) and paper plates... I might start looking at garage sales for onesey-twosey just for photographic use. Thanks for the yard sale suggestion.

I bought some disposable "party" paper plates at the market this afternoon. I'm currently working on another cooking project / photo shoot this evening and I think I'll try the "party" plates as the background. Also, I have another shoot/cook from last night that I haven't processed (the Swai Meuneire project) so I'll post more stuff soon.

I intended the recipe in the OP to be cooked although it sufficed as a backdrop for my photographic questions. I have a better recipe posted on "da web" if anybody wants to Google it. I'm usually more thorough in posting cookbook style recipes but this time I'm combining recipe brevity/succinctness with a photo subtext. :)

Coming up: Swai Meuneire, and Jalapeno Poppers! :D
 
My photos would get better if I can just find the house I'm looking for and buy it and unpack my stuff, and then I'd have plenty of plates and plenty of room to photograph it and plenty of room to stage backgrounds.

I've been admiring a new camera (Canon EOS Rebel T4i Digital SLR) although I'm doubtful that throwing money at it will help my photography. (And it's about a K-buck!!!) I'm shooting with this silly little Olympus pocket camera hand-me-down that I've been using since both my good cameras broke and weren't worth fixing (a Nikon and a Sony).

I think it's safe to say that changing things in front of the camera is the most likely place to seek improvement.
 
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