Pork, pork, pork (by G)

Well, if you had to judge this dinner by the photo you'd think it was very unpleasant.  Fortunately that was not the case.

Oddly it seems I've been regularly buying pork chops but not actually eating them so I have to use some of them up some time soon.  One of the problems with bone-in pork chops is that the bone generally takes longer to cook up than the meat and if you put it in the oven the meat tends to overcook. After a critical analysis of the pork chop it occurred to me that I could take the rind and bone off the chop and cook them separately.

I seasoned everything with salt and pepper, pan fried the meat and oven roasted the rind and bones. 

I thought onion jam would go quite well with the pork so I chopped 3 onions, caramelised them with some salt and thyme then added some brown sugar and balsamic vinegar to jam it up. Oh, I also added a couple of jalapeno chillies to add a little kick.

Pork and onion jam is not quire a meal so I thick cut a potato, blanched it in water, pan fried it and oven baked it to crispy perfection.  I also oven roasted some pumpkin and carrot (sprinkled with cumin) then tried to mash it with some vegetable stock. Unfortunately the carrot was not exactly tender and in an attempt to get it mashed I had a little accident and managed to burn myself with spots of volcanically hot mashed pumpkin.

The potatoes were great, as was the pumpkin but the highlight was the pork bones. I'm seriously going to buy up a bunch of pork bones, oven roast them and gnaw myself silly... stay tuned for that gastronomic delight.