CERRY BOMB PEPPERS AND CHIPOLLINI ONION SAUCE FOR GRILLED PORK CHOPS.

This recipe was in the April 2011 issue of Bon Appétit and is not available online. It is published in the reader’s favorite restaurant recipe (N Y City Mario Batali’s restaurant).

Every fall, I use cherry bomb peppers to pickle (my very own recipe with vinegar and honey). This is one of the few things that I still preserve for the winter. In Romania, many years ago my mother use to do so many preserves, tomato paste in jars, pickle cabbage, green tomatoes… and so on and so on!!!!  

For Christmas and New Year I have a nice little gift for my very good friends. One of my friends came up with this recipe and I was not so much impressed, at first. I found this recipe last week, into one of my kitchen notes and I realized that can turn into a very deliciously dish! 

I try it and it is a great recipe…. You can make it hot, or hotter, as you wish; you can make the sauce days in advance and just heat it   just as pork chops are ready to be grilled….

Ingredients:

4- 8oz pork chops with bone

¼ cup sugar

½ cup salt

8 cups water.

Mix all the ingredients, add pork chops, cover and refrigerate overnight.

 you also need:

1lb cipolline or pearl onion

¼ cup virgin oil

2 bell peppers (one red, one yellow) cut in small squares.

1 red onion finely chopped.

8 pickled cherry bomb peppers (from jar).

Directions:

1.                         Blench chipollini onion in hot water and cool, and peel.

Heat oil in a skillet and cook the whole little onion until they are soft and brown (about 10 minutes). Transfer onion and oil to a bowl.

2.                     Heat oil in the skillet, add red onion and bell peppers, to cook until soft and brown,  (about  5 minutes)

3.                           Add crushed red pepper, salt and black pepper, as one’s desire. Thew recipe asked for 4 cerry red pickled pepper, added to skilet, and 4 more to add as a garnish to teh plate. I prefeerd to added to the skilled, all of them , 8 to the skillet.            

4.                           Add to the skillet chipollini onion, stripes of cherry peppers, a tsp sugar or honey and heat again, just before you serve.

Remove pork chops from brine, pat dry, sprinkle with salt, and brush with oil.

Grill them about 5 minutes, until the grill mark appear on pork chops.

Plate each pork chop and add a good tablespoon of mixture over. Add a whole pickled red cherry pepper as garnish.