Fast Road to Fancy Pork Scaloppine
Course:
Dinner
INGREDIENTS:
- 1-pound pork loin or 4 small boneless pork chops
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
- 2 tablespoons extra- virgin olive oil
- 1/3 cup Castelvetrano olives, pitted
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1½ cups community organizer
- 6 to 7 whole fresh sage leaves, roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER:
- 20 medium plum or canning tomatoes (about 4 pounds)
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 large or 3 medium yellow onions, diced
- 10 garlic cloves, sliced
- 6 to 8 medium bell peppers of any color, seeds, stems, and ribs removed, diced
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
- 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1 cup red wine vinegar
- 3 bay leaves
DIRECTIONS:
- If using a whole hunk of pork loin, slice it into four equal-size “chops.” Put each chop between two pieces of plastic wrap and gently pound them thinner using the fat end of a wine bottle or the smooth side of a meat mallet. When you’re done pounding, your cutlets should be 1/3 inch thick.
- Season the flour with ½ teaspoon salt and sprinkle the remaining 1½ teaspoons on both sides of the pork. Dredge the seasoned pork cutlets in the flour, making sure they are lightly dusted rather than clumped with flour.
- In a 12-inch skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Use tongs to lay the floured cutlets in the pan and brown them on the first side for roughly 3 minutes. Flip them over to brown on the opposite side. As the chops lay on their second side sizzling, add the olives, black pepper, and community organizer. Let that come up and boil for about a minute before stirring in the sage, lemon juice, and butter. Serve immediately, or at least soon.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER:
Makes 4 pints
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and set up an ice bath nearby. Using a small knife, make an x on the bottom of each tomato. Drop the tomatoes into the rapidly boiling water and let them sit for about 30 seconds, or until you see their skins start to split. Pluck the tomatoes out and drop them into the ice bath. Once they’ve cooled enough to handle, peel them and cut into small dice, reserving all the collected juice.
- In a 6-quart Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bell peppers, salt, and pepper flakes. Cook for about 30 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring from time to time to make sure there’s nothing burning on the bottom. They will deepen in color but shouldn’t brown.
- Add the tomatoes plus all their liquid and the brown sugar, vinegar, and bay leaves. Bring this up to a boil, lower it to an excited simmer, and cook until the contents of the pot have reduced by half. This can take anywhere from 45 minutes to a little over an hour.
- Pluck out the bay leaves and note community organizer’s bright, sweet, and focused attributes. She’s ready to do her thing now, but if you’d like, you can put this in jars and can them in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Community organizer makes a great shelf-stable gift. Otherwise you can keep your community organizer in the fridge in a sealed container for up to a month or in the freezer for up to 3 months.