Sautéed Pork Steaks with Apples

23. October 2006 Pork 0

I misplaced a Mark Bittman recipe from The Times I saved two weeks ago. Now that I have a nice bottle of Reisling to cook with after visiting the Finger Lakes wine trail and plenty of firm apples to buy at the market, I was adamant to replicate it with some guess-timates. I still had some leftover thyme in the fridge kept fresh by the best thing in the world right now–Glad Press’n Seal–so I threw those in while the juices cooked the pork. We drank the rest of the Lamoreaux Landing Reisling with this and ate it with broiled white potatoes.

Ingredients:
6 pork steaks, about 1 inch thick, cut from the shoulder
3 Gala apples, cored and sliced
1/2 cup of Bordeaux or any other semi-heavy red
1/2 cup of dry Reisling
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
half a stick of butter
2 sprigs of thyme
salt and pepper

1. Rub the steaks with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Add the butter and brown the pork on both sides, about 4 minutes. Do this in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan.
2. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the red wine and the onion and cook, turning the pork once or twice, until the wine is all but evaporated, about 3 minutes.
3. Add some water if the sauce is a little too thick, turn the heat to low and cover. Cook for 10 minutes, turning them once or twice, until the pork is tender but not dry. Remove the pork to a plate.
4. Add the apples in the remaining liquid, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan as the apples cook. Add the Reisling and simmer in low fire until the apples absorb most of the liquid. Return the meat to the pan during the last few minutes to reheat them.