Pork Chops with spring onions in White Wine grape sauce

May brings more and more spring vegetables to the farmer’s market: sweet white corn, lady peas, zucchini and these beautiful deep purple spring onions with their mild flavor and crisp texture.

• pork chops -Bone in thick center cut prime
• zucchini
• fresh corn cut from the cob
• thyme – 3 sprigs – chopped for vegetables
• Rosemary – 3 sprigs
• 1 purple spring onion – cut in half (shallots are an excellent substitute)
• grapes seedless red – sliced – about 10
• 3/4 cup white wine
• 3 tbs white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup chicken stock
• 1 tsp mustard
• 2 tbs heavy cream

Always bring your meat to room temperature before cooking so that it cooks evenly.

Score the pork chops, pat dry and season with salt and pepper.

Cut the corn off of the cob and small dice the zucchini.

Sauté corn and zucchini in olive oil with thyme and pepper.

In another skillet, sear the chops and spring onion (cut in half) in olive oil. Flip and add rosemary sprigs, grapes and 2 TBS butter and transfer to a 350 degree oven and cook until chops reach 145 degrees.

Remove the chops, onions and grapes and deglaze the pan with white wine, add white wine vinegar, reduce, add chicken stock, reduce. Whisk in mustard. Strain. Add creme.

Plate vegetables first, followed by the pork chop, spring onion and grape sauce.

This is how I cook most of the time. Pan sauté a protein, finish it in the oven and prepare a sauce using all that good stuff that remains in the pan. Pantry staples: shallots, garlic, heavy cream, homemade stock, an assortment of vinegars, unsalted butter, and wine (anything you would drink). Pack your garden full of fresh herbs so they’re always on hand.