To recap: I’m digging this cookbook: 6 Ingredient Solutions by Americas Test Kitchen. You would think that because I write a food blog I always have a perfect dinner on the table. But…I say nay nay! Like everyone else on the planet I have nights where my children are busy pouring entire boxes of Cherios all over the floor and instead of cooking I’m doing some major sweeping. This cookbook has really helped me out with the easy dinners thing. A lot of the recipes call for ingredients I have on hand or are very easy to make substitutions for (and I am the queen of substitutions). After trying the cookbook for first time I decided to do a week of recipes from 6 Ingredients and write about it for you. (Though since I’m a food blogger I couldn’t just leave well enough alone and try the recipes as is… I tweaked and played. Like I said queen of substitutions.) So…
Day five: Sesame Pork Chops with Orange and Radish Salad– The original recipe called for: radishes, oranges, sweet chili sauce, sesame seeds, boneless pork chops, and vegetable oil. I was most intrigued by the orange and radish salad. It sounded…weird… but maybe good. Sesame seed covered pork chops didn’t sound like they would be a bad either. I was actually intending to use all ingredients as instructed….
What I actually used: Believe it or not I didn’t end up making the orange/radish salad, which is what I had been most curious about in the first place. I was doing the test for this dish on a weekday night, and discovered my oranges were yucky… there was no way I was running to the store for more. So unfortunately I canned the salad. But that’s how it is for real weeknight dinners for me (and I suspect most of the rest of you too). If you are missing an item, for some reason you don’t have time to run to the store… (I might attempt the salad again at another time. I really am intrigued.) Other then the salad I did use the called for ingredients, with the addition of a little soy sauce because I wanted a little more to the flavor then just the sweet chili sauce. I liked the sweet chili but it was missing something for me. I might try a different brand in the future.
The results: I have to confess this dish is the first I’ve made and not been real thrilled with. I was extremely frustrated when cooking this one because I couldn’t get the stupid sesame seeds to stay on those pork chops! The original recipe called for using the sweet chili sauce to act as a coating for the pork and to help the sesame seeds adhere. This sounded good to me, skip the egg wash, use something that adds flavor to make your coating stick… smart. And at first the seeds did adhere, but once I was cooking the chops, the seeds came right off. Mid way through I tried adding some panko to the seeds to see if I could get my coating to stick better, but it really didn’t help much. Now I admit I was having an off night, and I could have done something wrong, but I don’t really think so. I feel like on this recipe keeping the ingredient list down to 6 was prioritized above actually making the coating work properly. I personally am of the opinion that an egg wash or something of the sort is needed to properly adhere the coating, much as liked the idea of not needing the step. So to be 100% honest I consider this recipe a dud. I think it has potential, the flavors were good. I might revisit this recipe some day and play with the egg wash. And I really do want to give the orange and radish thing a try, but for now I’m going to let this one go. So no recipe to share today… no point in giving you something that doesn’t work right :)
P.S. However I do want to say that I hope that this doesn’t dissuade you from 6 Ingredient Solutions over all, because all the other recipes I’ve tried so far have been very good, and this one does have potential with that egg wash…
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