Tonight was another whimsical donabe cooking with random ingredients...
I stopped by at McCall's Meat & Fish in Los Feliz to get inspired in the afternoon. This is my favorite store for high quality meat/ fish in LA. In fact, it's actually hard for me to just walk in there without knowing what I want to buy beforehand, only because everything looks so delicious there and I feel like I want to buy everything!
Today, I ended up with their Kurobuta pork chops. They looked really amazing. Each piece was about 1-inch thick. The meat was so fresh and high quality that I could totally eat it by just pan-frying with only salt & pepper seasoning. But, on the way back from the store, I already had what to do in mind.
Kurobuta Pork Chop with Miso-Dijon-Orange Sauce
I marinated the meat in 2T sake, 1/2T light-color soy sauce, and 1T grated ginger for about 20 minutes. Then, in the skillet of my tagine-style donabe, "Fukkura-san", I lightly seared both sides of the meat in some butter.
The meat was transferred to a plate. After wiping the excess grease from the skillet. Some sesame oil was added and I sauteed garlic, shallot, haricot vert, zucchini, and enoki mushrooms. 1/4 C sake was added to deglaze. The sauce mixture (whisk together 2T miso, 2tsps Dijon mustard, 2T juice from orange, 1/2T light-color soy sauce, 1T mirin) was added and stirred with the vegetables. The meat was brought back to the donabe, covered with the lid, and cooked for 5-6 minutes over medium-heat.
About 1 minute before turning off the heat, I quickly opened the lid and sprinkled some orange zest. After turning off the heat, the donabe was rested for 2-3 minutes with the lid on.
The power pork dinner was ready. So easy, right?
But it's really this magical power of the Iga-yaki donabe which cooks this gorgeous meat so perfectly with its natural far-infrared-radiation (FIR) and heat retention.
The dish was served with the donabe rice. The meat was so succulent and packed with a lot of flavors. It was quite amazing. The miso sauce and the vegetables made a very nice accompaniment for the meat. The pork was cooked so perfectly that I ate it so fast.
Happy donabe life.
