- Joined
- Feb 8, 2017
- Location
- Monterey, CA
Hi friends!
If you saw my earlier post on period receipts for collops, you noticed that it's a very timeless, versatile dish that can use different meats, seasonings, and sauces. All of the recipes I saw appear to have a few things in common:
· The meat should be sliced thinly
· Cutlets are floured and pan fried
· A gravy or sauce is spooned on top of the cooked cutlets
All well and good, right? I thought so as I gave this dish a few modern twists, and was very happy with the results. I hope you'll give this a try!
First off, I decided to change up the meat, not being a huge fan of veal; it's hard to cook something you can imagine staring at you with big, adorable, mournful eyes. I debated between thinly sliced pork sirloin and chicken cutlets, finally settling on pork because there was less chance of it drying out. And also because piggies have small, beady eyes.
I gave the pork slices a light seasoning of salt and pepper, then coated them with a flour and cornstarch mixture that had been seasoned with garlic powder, smoked paprika, and a pinch of ground cloves. I stuck with the basic recipe of pan frying the cutlets, but in a mixture of oil and butter as I like the results better – butter adds flavor but can brown very quickly at the temp needed to get a good crisp exterior. These were fried up at medium high heat for a few minutes on each side – to be honest, I went more with the look of the cutlet than time, turning them once or twice to get the right crisp and light brown color I wanted.
Although the period recipes call for cooking the sauce or gravy with the collops, I wanted to keep the cutlets crisp and not have the sauce turn them into a soggy mess: after all, who wants soggy collops? The cutlets were given a timeout in a 175 degree oven while I made the sauce, again with some modifications from the original. I don't have the money or patience to look for morel mushrooms, so I stuck with a mix of fresh sliced white and brown mushrooms, probably about 2 cups' worth. These soaked up the flavor from the oil-butter mixture in the pan, to which I added a pinch of cayenne pepper, a spoonful of tomato paste, some chicken broth, grated lemon peel, and some minced garlic. To thicken this up, I threw in a little of the flour-cornstarch mixture I had left over, and simmered the sauce until it was bubbly and delicious-smelling. The final touch was adding some white balsamic vinegar and fresh lemon juice to the sauce. After spooning the sauce over the crispy pork cutlets, I went for broke and topped this with some crisp-cooked bacon.
The final result was amazing, even though (as our friend @Jimklag will point out) this is a clear violation of Jewish dietary laws.
There's a lot of flavor going on in there, and I think you'll find this dish is worth the time. Fortunately, most of the ingredients are commonplace and you won't have to search for exotic stuff to make a really good meal.
I hope you'll try this out, and let me know of any variations you make along the way! I'm sorry I don't have any exact measurements for this – I just used the original recipe as a starting point and eyeballed with my modern ingredients, but if you'd like my guesstimates, I can certainly post those anytime.
Enjoy!!
If you saw my earlier post on period receipts for collops, you noticed that it's a very timeless, versatile dish that can use different meats, seasonings, and sauces. All of the recipes I saw appear to have a few things in common:
· The meat should be sliced thinly
· Cutlets are floured and pan fried
· A gravy or sauce is spooned on top of the cooked cutlets
All well and good, right? I thought so as I gave this dish a few modern twists, and was very happy with the results. I hope you'll give this a try!
First off, I decided to change up the meat, not being a huge fan of veal; it's hard to cook something you can imagine staring at you with big, adorable, mournful eyes. I debated between thinly sliced pork sirloin and chicken cutlets, finally settling on pork because there was less chance of it drying out. And also because piggies have small, beady eyes.
I gave the pork slices a light seasoning of salt and pepper, then coated them with a flour and cornstarch mixture that had been seasoned with garlic powder, smoked paprika, and a pinch of ground cloves. I stuck with the basic recipe of pan frying the cutlets, but in a mixture of oil and butter as I like the results better – butter adds flavor but can brown very quickly at the temp needed to get a good crisp exterior. These were fried up at medium high heat for a few minutes on each side – to be honest, I went more with the look of the cutlet than time, turning them once or twice to get the right crisp and light brown color I wanted.
Although the period recipes call for cooking the sauce or gravy with the collops, I wanted to keep the cutlets crisp and not have the sauce turn them into a soggy mess: after all, who wants soggy collops? The cutlets were given a timeout in a 175 degree oven while I made the sauce, again with some modifications from the original. I don't have the money or patience to look for morel mushrooms, so I stuck with a mix of fresh sliced white and brown mushrooms, probably about 2 cups' worth. These soaked up the flavor from the oil-butter mixture in the pan, to which I added a pinch of cayenne pepper, a spoonful of tomato paste, some chicken broth, grated lemon peel, and some minced garlic. To thicken this up, I threw in a little of the flour-cornstarch mixture I had left over, and simmered the sauce until it was bubbly and delicious-smelling. The final touch was adding some white balsamic vinegar and fresh lemon juice to the sauce. After spooning the sauce over the crispy pork cutlets, I went for broke and topped this with some crisp-cooked bacon.
The final result was amazing, even though (as our friend @Jimklag will point out) this is a clear violation of Jewish dietary laws.
There's a lot of flavor going on in there, and I think you'll find this dish is worth the time. Fortunately, most of the ingredients are commonplace and you won't have to search for exotic stuff to make a really good meal.I hope you'll try this out, and let me know of any variations you make along the way! I'm sorry I don't have any exact measurements for this – I just used the original recipe as a starting point and eyeballed with my modern ingredients, but if you'd like my guesstimates, I can certainly post those anytime.
Enjoy!!
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