Cook Along Thursday - Scallopini, or Possibly Pork Piccata

Want a laugh? Here's the recipe Nick originally sent me to post:

4 T wine
5 T lemon
5 T cream
1 cup butter
4 oz bacon
6 oz artichokes
2 t capers

Wine and lemon over medium until reduced by 1/3
Stir in cream and simmer until thickens
Add butter 1 T at a time
Keep warm
Cook protein

That's right. That's it. Luckily, we know each other (and our cooking styles) well. But given the fact that most people wouldn't know what exactly Nick was going for here, I had him beef it up a bit:

Lemon Butter Sauce:

1/4 cup white wine

5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

5 tablespoons heavy cream

1 cup butter, chilled

salt and pepper to taste

Pork and Pasta:

1/2 pound dry farfalle pasta (cook the whole pound and add however much you want)

4 pork chops - cut off the bone and pounded to 1/4 inch thickness

1½  cups vegetable oil

2 tablespoon butter

1/8 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup panko bread crumbs

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 eggs – lightly beaten

Extra flour set aside

salt and pepper to taste

4 ounces bacon

6 ounces artichoke hearts, drained and halved

2 teaspoons capers, drained

Directions:

To make the sauce, pour the wine and lemon juice into a saucepan over medium heat. Cook at a low boil until the liquid is reduced by 1/3. Stir in cream, and simmer until it thickens. Gradually add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time to the sauce, stirring until completely incorporated. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat, and keep warm.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boil. Add pasta, and cook until al dente, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, and set aside.

To make the pork, heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. In a bowl, stir together flour, panko, cayenne, salt, and pepper. In a separate bowl, coat the pork in the extra flour then dip the chops in the beaten eggs. Lightly coat the dredged pork with the panko and flour mixture. Without crowding, carefully place pork in hot oil. (If necessary, cook in batches.) Fry until cooked through and golden brown on both sides, turning once. Remove the pork to paper towels. In a separate skillet, heat the butter over medium heat.  Stir the bacon, artichokes, and capers into the butter and cook until the bacon is done.

To serve, place pasta in a large bowl. Stir the bacon mixture into the pasta. Taste, and adjust seasonings. Stir in additional lemon butter sauce as desired. Toss well, add pork chop on top of pasta and enjoy.

What's Cooking This Week

Things are looking delicious this week. We'll be cooking Monday, Thursday and Friday this week. We tend to cook three to four times a week; we have a weekly dinner with family friends most Wednesday's, and Tuesday's have recently turned into Mutt's nights.

Tuesday is Skirt Steak With Roasted Root Vegetables from the October 2011 issue of Food Network Magazine. I have a bit of what could be considered a food magazine habit. I subscribe to Food Network Magazine, Real Simple and Rachael Ray, Nick has a coworker that sends home copies of Food and Wine with him every month, and still, if left unsupervised in the checkout line, I cannot be trusted to pass up any special recipe edition Southern Living, Crock Pot Cooking or Holiday Cookies mini-booklet that crosses my path. A lot of the recipes we use here will be from magazines.

Nick's making his signature Scallopini on Thursday. This is the first meal that Nick ever cooked for me, and it's still one of my favorites. He'll be posting the recipe, but you'll need either shrimp, chicken, veal or - as we are using - pork chops. From what I remember/what we bought at the store today you'll also need lemons, artichoke hearts (we bought two small jars), capers, unsalted butter, cream (we bought a pint) and pasta (we use farfalle). I think we're breading the pork, so we'll probably use an egg wash, so I'm thinking you'll need an egg or two and panko bread crumbs. Again, Nick will be posting the actual recipe, but I think if you have all of the ingredients I just listed, you should be good to go. I'm sure at one point, Nick probably included parsley in the recipe, but since I am not a parsley fan, he leaves it out now.

Friday will be Grilled Flank Steak With Tomatoes, Red Onion and Balsamic from skinnytaste.com. I love Gina's recipes. They all include Weight Watchers Informations, which, while we aren't on WW, I find comforting when trying to eat healthfully.

Check back to see how things turn out!