Cooking for my boyfriend: Pork Chops w/ Sweet and Sour Bell Peppers and Onions.

This isn't the first time I cooked for my boyfriend though we shall say some previous attempts at cooking for him ended up quite disastrous. Once I made oven baked portebellos and they were very unappetizing with an extreme amount of balsamic vinegar. I learnt to never trust a random cooking site that displays their recipe. Another time, I attempted a mushroom sauce for my chicken breast but it ended up too salty because the bullion cubes were salted. Horrible as well.

Away from the horrible cooking experiences, I've had more successful cooking stints which includes my very first ramen, cha soba, cheesey baked chicken, fried chicken in hawaiian sauce and of course yesterday's pork chops. The pork chops turned out to be awesome.

Here's a few pictures of my previous attempts at cooking which was more successful.

Pork Chops with red peppers and caramelized onions.

 Cha Soba with Spring Onions

 Cheesy Sausages

Cheesy Chicken, Hawaiian Stir-fried Chicken and a bowl of Tonkatsu Ramen.

If you do want to know how I cooked my pork chops which was much a success aside from the fact that I added too much butter which lead to much of the pepper being washed off, you can see the recipe below. Feel free to tweak the recipe to suit your needs.

INGREDIENTS

Serves 2

• 4 Pieces Pork Chops, seasoned with salt and peppers (taken out of the fridge 20 mins before cooking)
• Olive oil, for frying
• 1/2 red bell pepper, sliced
• 1/2 onion thinly sliced
• ½ clove garlic, crushed
• 4 sprigs thyme
• About 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 6 slices of butter

Method

1. Sauté the sliced bell peppers and onions, and sprinkle some salt, pepper and one tablespoon of sugar to help caramelise the onions and peppers. After they caramelise, add red wine vinegar to stain and deglaze. Turn off the gas, add 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and allow the vegetables to stew for 2-3 mins. Add in chopped basil and cook for further 30 seconds.
2. Heat a large, heavy-based sauté pan or shallow saucepan over a high heat. Add a good glug of oil and put in the seasoned pork chops. Before placing in, ensure to cut the slits in the Rhine to prevent the pork from curling up. Add the crushed garlic cloves and thyme into the pan. Depending on thickness, 2 inches thick requires about 3 ½ to 4 minutes on each side. Add slices of butter after turning over the pork chops and baste the butter over the pork chops constantly to keep them moist. Take them out after they are ready and let them rest for 10 minutes before serving.

My Boyfriend certainly enjoyed the dish I made. I did too. The sauce was amazing! Yum.