September and we still have some green tomatoes, even as the apples begin to ripen on the tree. An odd summer. Before we went on our early September trips to Tokyo (Yoshie) and Boston (Steven) we built an ad-hoc green house to protect the tomatoes and give them more time to ripen on the vine. This worked, but even today there are a dozen or so that are still green. We took advantage of this to experiment with some more green tomato sauces and fillings. The pork chops were from Market Meats on 4th Ave. in Kitsilano and were a very tasty organic kurobuta (Japanese for black big).
- Two Pork chops, thick cut, with enough fat to be tasty
- One large green tomato
- One apple (we used Macintosh from our tree)
- Curry leaf (two or three tablespoons)
- Garlic (three cloves)
- Onion (half a medium onion)
- Wine (we used the last of our summer rosé)
- Olive oil
- Butter
(Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees)
Slice a deep pocket in each pork chop, season with salt and pepper, set aside.
Mince onion and garlic then start simmering at low heat in olive oil.
Cut green tomatoes into small cubes (less than one centimeter square) and add to onion and garlic. Do the same with the apple. Simmer the tomato and apple mixture until soft and then add fine chopped curry leaf to taste (we like a lot, two table spoons) add a half cup of the rosé. Simmer down.
Use half of the tomato-apple mixture to stuff the pork chops, reserve the rest for the sauce.
Sear pork chops at high heat on a pan that you can put in the oven. Let pan cool a bit then splash in another cup of wine. Cook in pre-heated oven for about thirty minutes.
When the pork chops are done, remove from pan and let rest, Deglaze the pan with some more wine and scrape in all of the crispy bits. Add the reserved tomato-apple mixture and a large tab of butter. Add more wine if necessary. Reduce to a think sauce sprinkling in more of the curry leaf towards the end.