Usually I get pretty intimidated by most recipes that I find in Bon Appetit magazine, all the steps, ingredients I never heard of and on some occasions lack of step-by-step pictures, which I desperately need. Yet I continue to subscribe every month because sometimes I find a gem of a recipe that provides cooking tips I would never had thought of.

This recipe was from the January issue and was included in a section on pan roasting. This simple method for cooking meat made a world of a difference, along with brining the meat for 8 hrs. What is brining you ask? I had the same question, turns out its simply a water based marinade with sugar and water. I think water marinade sounded too simple so BA fancied it up and called in “brining.”

Now onto the recipe!

Ingredients

• 1/2 Cup Salt
• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• 1 TSP Juniper Berries ( I actually left these out because I couldn’t find them ANYWHERE, but it still turned out just fine)
• 1/2 TSP of Peppercorn
• 1 Head and two cloves of garlic
• 2 large springs of Thyme
• 2 Porkchops 2″ thick bone in
• 2 TBSP Grapeseed Oil
• 3 TBSP butter
• Sea Salt

Recipe

• Bring two cups of water to a boil, add in salt, sugar, peppercorns, 1/2 head of garlic, 1 thyme sprig – stir and boil until Salt/Sugar is dissolved 
• Once dissolved remove from heat and add five ice cubs to mixture to cool down

• Once cooled add pork chops, cover and chill for 8 – 12 hours
• Pre-heat oven to 450
• Pat dry pork chops and heat oil in oven proof skillet
• Add to skillet and cook until pork chops begin to brown, turning every 2 minutes for around 12 minutes
• Transfer to oven and roast – turning once again every two minutes for around 14 minutes or until temperature of meat is 145 degrees F

• Remove from oven, carefully drain fat from skillet – add butter, 2 unpeeled garlic cloves and thyme sprig to skillet
• Using large spoon continually baste meat for 3 minutes

• Transfer pork chips to a prepared rack and turn every two minutes for 15 minutes