Braised Pork in Milk with Lemon and Sage over Spinach

Braised Pork in Milk with Lemon and Sage over Spinach

So I have this friend who has a food blog in this far distant place called Ireland. He recently posted a recipe about some rare, free-range organic pork that can only be found in that special place of the world, and he did a fine job with it! But, today, I am here to tell you about how to cook cheap, non-free-range odd cuts of pork into a delicious meal, which doesn’t require trips to specialty breed organic farmers, meat butchers, and the like. (No offense Conor! 😉 To make amends, I shall lead others to your epic blog —> HERE.)

What I have here are two distinctly generic cuts of pork, one a thick bone-in pork loin, the other, two small thin slices of pork chops. Both of which were purchased then frozen from the 50% off bin. GASP! However, I am a frugal shopper when I want to be.

Non-Free-Range nor Rare Pork Cuts

I adapted this recipe from my Braised Chicken in Milk recipe. Low and slow is the way to go my friends! I selected to eat (after cooking) the thin chops, which I chose to bundle together first to match the pork loin thickness. They were perfectly moist and delicious, as well as a bite I took from my husband’s pork loin was equally moist and tender. However, my husband swears one can never cook a moist and tender pork and even balked at his piece. Nay-sayer! But let me tell you, I will prove him wrong once I buy a sous-vide machine, which is happening in the very near future. I know I keep telling my foodie friends that, but I have to put this nonsense to bed that pork can’t ever be tender. So there.

Now, on to the recipe, which is fantastic (and simple) in my humble opinion.

Braised Pork in Milk with Lemon and Sage over Spinach

3/4 to 1-1/2 pounds pork cuts, even thickness, any kind
Ground black pepper and salt or Mrs. Dash, to taste
1 tablespoon real butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup homemade or low sodium chick broth/stock
1 cinnamon stick
Handful of fresh sage
Zest/skin of a large lemon, peeled in thick strips
Handful of garlic cloves, smashed
1-1/2 cups Half and Half or Heavy Cream, plus 1/2 to 1 cup more if needed
4 to 6-ounces fresh spinach

The Ubiquitous Ingredients Shot

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Season the pork all over with ground black pepper and salt or Mrs. Dash, to taste. Add butter and olive oil over medium-high heat in a deep cast iron skillet or Dutch oven and brown on both sides.

Browning the Inferior Pork

Remove from the heat then put the pork on a plate to rest. Deglaze the skillet or pot with the chicken broth, scraping up the browned bits. Add the rest of the ingredients back to the skillet except pork and spinach and stir until simmering.

Bringing Lovely Sauce up to Simmer

Nestle the pork into the sauce and place in the preheated oven for 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

Ready to Bake in Oven

Turn the pork over and stir the sauce half-way through the cooking time.

When done, remove from oven and remove the pork to a plate and cover to rest again. Add the skillet to the stove burner over low heat, then add spinach, and add 1/2 cup to 1 more cup of Half and Half or cream, if needed. Stir until the spinach is wilted and the sauce has thickened and is bubbling. Don’t worry about any curdling, it’s supposed to do that.

Simmering the Sauce and Wilting the Spinach

Remove cinnamon stick and lemon rinds from sauce, and garlic cloves if you want but they are yummy! Serve the pork over the spinach on warmed plates, with plenty of extra sauce to coat.

Braised Pork in Milk with Lemon and Sage over Spinach

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Food52 Community Pick! Coffee-Infused Upside-Down Banana Skillet Cake

Coffee-Infused Upside-Down Banana Skillet Cake

Oh wow, how exciting! I’ve made it to the Community Pick level for the most recent Food52 cooking contest for Your Best Recipe Made with Coffee! This was a tricky category for me as I don’t cook a lot of desserts (as you can probably tell by the amount of recipes available in that category on my blog).

This was a great piece of news for the start of a three-day weekend for me! Yay! I’ve never made it to the finals but bragging rights at this level are still OK, right?

Click here for the Recipe as shown on Food52 —-> Coffee-Infused Upside-Down Banana Skillet Cake

And if you are truly adventurous, you can volunteer to test my recipe to submit notes on the entry for the judges. Click here for that —–> Community Picks Recipe Testing—Recipes Made with Coffee

*Beaming* 🙂

Braised Chicken in Milk

Braised Chicken in Milk

Sometimes you just have to ignore comments on a recipe and just go with it. This is one I followed some suggestions from the original recipe, and they didn’t work out for me. Plus the fact that my husband insisted he didn’t want “split milk” and that the original instructions stated “you can add a few tablespoons of fat to keep the sauce from curdling” but failed to read on that “the split sauce is actually the point.”

Well I came out with a LOT of sauce that wasn’t split, and it was much too watery. Many readers said they did not have enough sauce and wish they kept the pot covered, which I did. SOOOOO, lesson learned? If you are going to make a recipe from someone as famous in the culinary world as Jamie Oliver, just try it exactly as is and then modify as needed on the next go-round.

However, the chicken was exceedingly moist and tender, and the sauce was delicious even if too much and too watery. For the leftovers, I scraped off the fat that solidified to the top (the butter and olive oil) the next day after refrigerating it and reduced the strained sauce over the stove. BINGO! Split milk curdly sauce.  OMG it was delicious!!! Both me and my daughter ate the leftovers right up. Next go-round with this? Original recipe. I will link to that. My variations are in the recipe below, which is probably not the best help for you. Comments are added to NOT do some things I did. 😉

I served this with homemade mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach with some of the lemon juice from the lemon I zested for this.

Braised Chicken in Milk Ingredients

Braised Chicken in Milk
Adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Chicken in Milk on the Food52 website

One 3 to 4 pound organic chicken (Mine was 3 1/2 pounds)
Salt or Mrs. Dash, to taste
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons real butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cinnamon stick
3 sprigs fresh sage (use more if you have some, that’s all I had)
Zest of 1 very large lemon, peeled in thick strips with a peeler
10 to 15 garlic cloves, skins left on. (Some of mine were very small)
2 cups whole milk (not half or skim)

Snug Chicken in a Pot!

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and use a snug-fitting pot for the chicken (My 3 1/2 pound chicken fit snugly in a 3 quart saucepan that had an oven proof lid, however you may not want a lid).

Season the chicken all over with salt or Mrs. Dash and pepper, and fry it in the butter and olive oil. Turn it 1/4 turns until golden-ish all over. This took about 20 minutes.

Browned Chicken

Remove from the heat then put the chicken on a plate. Here was my first mistake. I left the butter and olive oil in the pot. Don’t do that. Remove it for another use, such as sauteing some veggies.

Put your chicken back in the pot with the rest of the ingredients, then cook it covered (DON’T) in the preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours. Baste with the cooking juice when you remember. (I forgot, OY!) However, if you do want more sauce you can partially cover it. I did end up taking the lid off in the last 20 minutes to brown the skin a bit more.

The Rest of the Ingredients Added to Chicken Ready to Finish Cooking

When done, remove from oven, then cut and divide the chicken on to your plates. Spoon over plenty of juice and curds (if you have them!). Serve with wilted spinach or greens and mashed potatoes.

Braised Chicken in Milk Meal

As an aside, here is what the “reduced” gravy after taking out the fat looked like with the chicken in it the next day (I added the chicken after reducing the sauce just to heat the meat back up.) That sauce was WAY better that way. Just remember, curdles aren’t all that bad, even if your spouse disagrees! 🙂

Split Milk and Lemon Sauce Done Right

 

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