The thing about pork chops is, well, I have had them just about every way they can be cooked or at least it feels that way sometimes.  The other night I found I had more time to make dinner than I thought I did, so I decided to try and create something completely different.  I started reducing this, adding to that, remembering flavors of dishes that impressed me long ago and just trying to come up with something different for pork chops.

This recipe worked out great and let me tell you, there is many a time when I get cooking like this when it just doesn’t work out.  Fortunately this was not one of them!

Ingredients:

• 5 pork chops about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick
• 20 oz can of pineapple slices with juice, chop pineapple in a food processor
• 32 oz beef stock
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 to  1 1/2 cups Jack Daniels bourbon whiskey
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp fresh ground mustard seed
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425

I am not going to lie to you here, I played this by ear, but I wrote down what the amounts as I went along.  Feel free to taste test this along the way and adjust to your liking!

In a small sauce pan, bring the beef stock to a boil and reduce 80% (about 20-30 minutes).

Add the chopped pineapple and half of the juice from the can.

Remove pot far away from the burner and add the whiskey, then the sugar, then return to heat.

Add the mustard seed.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Reduce this mixture down until it is medium light syrup.  Not quite as thick as gravy, but thicker than au jus sauce.  While this is happening, sprinkle the pork chops with salt and pepper and cook at 425 for about 15 minutes on a grease less pan (a pan where all the fat drops to a pan underneath) .

Remove the pork chops from the oven.  Add some of the glaze to a separate bowl and dunk each pork chop in the glaze you just put in the bowl, coating each completely and return to  the pan.  Put back in the oven for 5 – 10 minutes or until the glaze just starts to caramelize.  You might need to use the broiler here, or if you have a convection oven, convect roast.

Discard the glaze that is in the bowl.  Use the remaining glaze as a dipping sauce.