Pork Chops and Apples

I don't really do a lot of cooking.  Sure, I do plenty of baking, but that's not really the same thing.  In an effort to improve my repertoire, I've decided I'm going to try cooking something (that doesn't come out of a box) for dinner at least once a week.  After flipping through the cookbook How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman (a really great cookbook; you should check it out), I decided to try my hand at pork chops with apples.

For this recipe you need four pork chops (about an inch thick and with the bone in them--they're tastier than boneless), 2 Tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper, 1/2 C beer (you can also use dry white wine, but I don't like dry wines, hence the beer instead), 2 Tbsp chopped green onion (the book says shallot, but I think they're the same thing), 3 apples peeled, cored, and sliced, 1 onion sliced, 1/2 C chicken broth, 1 Tbsp lemon juice, and 1 Tbsp butter.

All this!  Plus chicken broth, which I forgot about.

Before you do anything else, you might want to go ahead and slice up your apples, onion, and green onion.  You don't want to still be doing this when it's time to add them to the pan.  Also, 2 tablespoons of green onion wound up being around two green onions, so you can just chop up two of those and not worry about having to measure it.

All ready to go!

In a large skillet, heat up the oil over medium heat.  Once the oil is hot, turn the heat up to high and add your pork chops.  Sprinkle some salt and pepper on them.

Use a really big pan.

Let them cook for about two minutes, or until they start to brown up and you can turn them over easily.  Flip them over, put some more salt and pepper on them, and cook that side until it's browned.  Now it's time to turn the heat down to medium and add the beer or wine and the green onion.

Let that cook until most of the beer has evaporated, turning the pork chops once or twice.  Take the pork chops out of the pan and onto a plate and add the apples and onion to the pan.  The cookbook says that you're supposed to stir them until the apples start to stick (1-2 minutes), but my apples never did stick, so just go with two minutes or so. 

Stir in the chicken broth and put the pork chops back in the pan.  Bring the whole thing to a boil, reduce the heat so it simmers, and cover.  Cook for another 5-10 minutes (or so), turning the pork chops a couple times, until the pork chops are cooked through and the apples and onion are soft.  Stir in the lemon juice and butter.  And you're done!

This ended up being fairly easy to make and wound up being pretty tasty.  Hopefully the leftovers will be just as good!