Tuesday, November 8, 2011

What Can You Make from 2 Large Pork Chops

I often post what I've been making for dinner, etc on my facebook page.  I got asked today to tell how I made a pork stock for my pork & tortilla soup.  Well, it all started with these huge bone in pork chops that were, well, really really salty right out of the store.  So much so that if we smoked them on the grill they tasted like ham.  Not so good when you just want grilled pork chops!

So, I needed to make them into something we could actually eat.  These two giant bone-in pork chops (probably about 1/3-1/2lb each) made probably about 11 or 12 meals total, maybe more.

Night 1:  I used most of 1 pork chop to make some pork fried rice.  Diced up the large part of 1 pork chop and mixed with a couple cups of day old rice, chopped carrots, celery, fried egg, frozen peas, some chopped onion (1/2 large onion diced) and likely some garlic.  A bit of soy sauce once it's all fried up and poof!  Fried Rice.

Night 2:  I took the pork chop that was left, and the bone from the other one and simmered it in a small-ish pot with some water and taco seasoning (no sodium/salt) until it was very tender and falling off the bone.  I then shredded the pork with a couple forks and  made some corn tortillas for tacos.

Night 3: Took the bones from the pork chops and the left over "juice" from simmering the now shredded pork and put in lots of water for a big pot of stock.  Added in celery, carrots, the rest of that onion from the fried rice, more taco seasoning and simmered until it was stock like.  Added in an appropriate amount of salt (not much since it was so salty to begin with), took out the bones and added the shredded pork back in.  I then brought the pot up to boiling and whisked in a few tablespoons of corn meal into the pot to thicken it up... Not too much or you end up with a big thick pot of polenta.  (Wrong ethnicity for this dish. ;-) )  Mixed in a good serving of shredded cheese.  Served this up with baked tortilla strips (cut the left over tortillas from the tacos in strips and baked them), chopped/diced tomatoes, more shredded cheese, and some kefir yogurt (thickened by draining off the whey) - instead of sour cream.

Ate these same 2 pork chops for at least 2 meals of fried rice - for 4, and 3.  Then tacos for 4, and then tortilla soup for 4 and 4 or 5 the next day (forget if DH took it for lunch or not ;-) ).

So, for chops that were way too salty to just eat as chops, they stretched pretty far.  The same idea can be done with a whole chicken.  Must do that again soon.

Apologies for no pictures, I must remember to do that. :/

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