Old El Paso Pork Chops

Old El Paso Pork Chops seasoned with American Taco Spice.

I always have a homemade Mexican seasoning in my pantry that I like to call American Taco Spice.

If you sprinkle two tablespoons of it on a pound of ground beef, it will taste just like meat seasoned with the spice packet found in an Old El Paso taco kit. This type of taco seasoning and the popularity of tacos from Taco Bell have become the standard "taco" flavor in the U.S., although real Mexican tacos are vastly different.

My American Taco Spice seasoning doesn't require any water and it has no preservatives. It has a fresh taste with bolder flavors than the spice packet and makes for a mighty fine American taco. The star of the show is chili powder and cumin followed by salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder.

I use the seasoning on any cut of meat, not just for tacos and it's especially tasty on burgers. For this recipe, I sprinkled it on bone-in pork loin chops that I grilled for lunch. (Hence the name Old El Paso Pork Chops!) Joining the chops on the plate are microwave-steamed veggies and plain white rice. It was a healthy meal for two and the seasoning was key to making it extra delicious. The whole plate takes around a half hour to make.

AMERICAN TACO SPICE
Makes 1/2 cup
Store in jar with tight lid
3 Tbs Chili Powder
3 Tbs Kosher Salt
2 Tbs Cumin
2 Tbs Fresh Cracked Black pepper
1 Tbs Onion Powder
1 Tbs Garlic Powder

Mix together well. Use to season individual cuts of meat or 2 tablespoons per pound of ground meat for tacos.

OLD EL PASO PORK CHOPS WITH VEGGIES AND RICE

Old El Paso Pork Chops with Veggies and Rice

Serves 2; 35 minutes
3  Bone-in Center Cut Pork Chops
2 Tbs American Taco Spice
1 Cup White Rice
12 oz (1 bag) Vegetable medley (Broccili, cauliflower and carrot)

Preheat grill to high. Season pork on both sides with American Taco Spice. (Approximately 1 teaspoon per side)

In a pot or sauce pan, stir rice in a little oil over high heat until well coated. Add 2 cups of water, boil and cover. Reduce heat to medium-low let simmer 10 minutes. Turn off heat, do not remove cover. Let steam until chops and veggies are finished. Remove lid and fluff.

Place chops over direct heat on grill. Let cook 3 1/2 minutes. Flip and cook 3 1/2 minutes more or until internal temperature reaches 130° for medium. Remove from grill, let rest 10 minutes.

In a microwave steam bag, Cook vegetables on high for five minutes. Let steam an extra minute or two more once microwave shuts off. Remove from bag. Start microwave as soon as chops are removed from grill and are resting.

Place a scope of rice, some veggies and a chop on plate and serve.

COST PER SERVING
The chops were on sale: 3 weighing 1.30 lbs @ $2.99 per pound cost $3.89. The veggies were 40% off and cost $1.49 for 1 12 oz bag. The rice and seasoning were in my pantry. So the total cost of the fresh ingredients per serving was $2.68.  That's a steal for this yummolicious meal!

Eat well, cook often ...

Stuffed Loin Chops

Printable version

My favorite cut of pork is the loin. It can be roasted, grilled, pan fried, braised or cooked just about anyway and it provides a canvass that works well with different flavors from fresh herbs, to marinades and spice rubs, even fruits. Recently, as I scanned the meat counter at the local grocery store, two enormous boneless loin chops jumped out at me and I knew they were destined to fill my belly.

They were cut extra thick, at least an inch, making them perfect to stuff with a special surprise. A normal or 3/4-inch cut loin chop isn’t thick enough to hold much when stuffed, but thicker cuts, like the chops features here are perfect. They can hold enough stuffing for it to be a major element.

I chose fresh sage with Swiss cheese wrapped in a thin slice of smoked ham for the stuffing. The ham would add a smoky element and make for a nice wrapper for the other ingredients.

All of these elements together added up to a tasty main course. I seared a nice crust on the outside in a cast iron skillet then finished them in the oven – which is a fun way to prepare chops, especially for a foodie like myself.

BEHIND THIS BITE

Stuffed Loin Chops

I tried something new with the presentation of this recipe. There are only 4 ingredients, but there are a number of steps in the preparation to get to the final product. With an emphasis on preparation, I decided to shoot the entire recipe at a 3/4 infinity view on a white back ground.

This is probably the only time I’ve ever presented an entire information graphic recipe without any birds-eye view shots. I think the technique will take some refining on my part but overall I like the look of this post. The repeated angle of the different elements combined with the slight overlap of each step seems to create a cascading feel in the presentation. I think I should explore this type of documentation again when it presents itself in the future.

Eat well, cook often ...

THE RECIPE

Stuffed Loin Chops

Serves 2; 30 minutes
2 slices Smoked ham
2 sticks Swiss cheese
2 leaves Fresh sage
2 Loin chops, thick cut, boneless

Prepare chop
Place stick of cheese and sage leaf on the edge of a slice of ham. Roll into a cylinder. With a sharp skinny knife make an incision into the middle of pork chop big enough to insert ham and cheese roll. Completely insert roll into chop. Repeat.

Cook chops
Preheat oven to 400°
Season chops with salt and pepper to taste. In a cast iron or oven-safe skillet, sear chops on both sides  over high heat in a little olive oil for at least 2 minutes per side to form a crust. Remove from stove and place in oven, bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until chops are cooked through. Remove and rest for at least 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

One of the Best Pork Chops You'll Ever Eat

My first experience using a brine resulted in the most delicious turkey I have ever eaten. My second experience was a culinary disaster.

I was at the family campground for a summer vacation from New York when I challenged my uncle to a pork loin throw down.

My uncle makes money on the side cooking pork for large parties with a giant cooker that he could tow to the Grand Canyon if he had to. He is a pork cooking samurai. I was not fazed by this. After all, I was the young blood in the family who was showing a lot of promise in the kitchen with the grilled pizzas and fresh herbs that my elders had been noticing.

My aunt had a whole loin thawing. I said let's brine it! She said no. My uncle would be cooking it in the roaster. This was where I got ahead of myself. I was still a couple of bits of knowledge away from really understanding how to experiment with food. But as any young and ambitious man would do, I decided to challenge a tribal elder. "Let's cut it in half. You take a piece and I'll take a piece. We'll serve it side by side tomorrow night at diner!" My uncle agreed.

The challenge was on.

My aunt gave me half and kept the other for my uncle. I proceeded to get a box of kosher salt and dump about 4 or 5 cups into a gallon of boiling water with some dried herbs. I let it cool completely, then submerged the pork for an all-night bath. I had visions of my family biting into succulent pieces of pork loin so tender and juicy that they thought they were biting into a rib eye at a high-end steakhouse.

The next morning, I removed the pork from the brine. I could tell right away there was something horrifically wrong. The salt hadn't created a surface barrier to lock juices in, it had cured the pork. It turned the entire chunk of meat into a salt-riddled mess. I had used about 10 times the amount of salt I needed for a brine. As I learned the hard way, the most important aspect of brining is the ratio of salt and/or sugar to water.

But I was determined. The show would go on!

Near dinner time, I took the pork from the fridge and sliced it into chops. I grilled them and served it along side my uncle's typical award-winning loin. The salt did me in. The final cooked product, which was grilled, was so salty that it was virtually inedible. I hadn't just served a lesser product in the competition.

I served a nightmare on a plate.

My relatives were polite and said things like. "It's different. I'm not sure if the brine really worked."

Hell no it didn't work! Two bites and you'd be dehydrated from the amount of salt in your body! I took my lumps. It was not my day for this round of culinary combat.

I would like to have a rematch sometime. My skills have matured and now I can actually serve up a mean pork loin, but for now my uncle still has the title.

THE COLUMN

In the paper these ran as two separate columns, both of which I was very proud of. The chops ran first and the next week were followed by the pasta salad. Space in print is limited and the meal had to be divided into two columns.

But the web presents a forum where space is unlimited!

For this post, I have created a visual recipe with no space limitations. It is a "poster" of the meal I intended to create. Instead of publishing my blog as individual blog post I redesigned and combined two columns as a "summer barbecue web exclusive." It just another adventure in the renegade world of being a visual food writer.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This piece has roughly 500 words and 19 photographs. I have been very pleased over the last year at how my style of visualizing a single recipe has evolved. Honestly, I'm stunned with how this turned out.The combination of two recipes that appear on a single plate takes the presentation to a new level. It's visualizing a meal – not just one tasty bite. I am going to start to model my column after this. I will keep featuring single recipes, I'm just going to do them in series like this that sometimes feature meals or spreads for a party. It seems to be the next logical step. ALONG with getting a book of my first 50 columns published, of course.

Eat well, cook often ...