Pork, heavy cream/wine reductions, porking...

Last night was far better than expected. Orpheus ended up calling the rental company for which he was completing paperwork, and they let him know they’d rented the place out from under him. Thus, he went back to his old landlord, who knew him already, and didn’t require a cosigner. This weekend, I’ll be helping him to lug his stuff down the street two blocks to the new place. Hopefully, he’ll just sign for the summer as well, because I really don’t want to be doing this again in four months (even if he did offer to move in with me – very sweet, but the timing is bad).
As I headed over to his place directly after work, I was suffering from several different problems. Problem the first was a dazed countenance and attitude after one of the most frazzlingly busy days I’ve ever experienced here. Problem the second related to cooking at O.’s place. He has tried very hard to get me all the basic things that I’d need to be more or less comfortable making food without hauling half of my kitchen along with me every time I come over, even finding a surprisingly good rolled-steel blade, sintered, granton-edged santoku on sale at a price he could afford. With these considerately provided tools, I ended up making a culinary sow’s ear into half a silk purse for dinner last night…
Orpheus had pretty limited stuff to cook with. I started by thin-slicing half a sweet onion, sautéing it in an absurd amount of grapeseed oil until translucent, then removing the onion from heat. I then butterflied two thick-cut boneless pork loin chops that his parents’ bought for him after Christmas, seasoning with salt, pepper and a touch of paprika on both sides. These were quick-fried for a minute and a half on each side in the onion-oil, then slapped on the foreman to finish cooking, covered with the onions reserved from earlier. I then browned crushed pine nuts in the fat remaining in the fry pan, and deglazed with a good couple ounces of white Rioja, adding about four ounces of cream when the pan was clean on the bottom. This mixture was brought to a boil, stirred constantly, and reduced to a simmer until the sauce had thickened, and browned just a touch.
The dish went wrong in only two ways. First, I left it on the grill too long. The pork was a touch over-cooked. Secondly, I added bleu cheese crumbles just before pouring the finished sauce over the chops. Next time, I’m going to put the chops under the broiler for a couple minutes with the onions and bleu cheese to finish cooking and form a nice crust. The sauce will be poured over to finish and serve. Also, I’m doing it next time with veal, not pork, animal rights be damned. Finally, I’m not serving with potatoes. Greens, greens, greens! In any case, it was good eats. And the sex was just what the doctor ordered, after we’d had a chance to digest. Overall, a very satisfactory evening, all told!