2008/06/29

Guajillo Crusted Pork Chops w/ Mango Chutney, Cilantro Cream, & Kiwi Lime Foam

So my twins love to dip things, so I crafted my meal concept around giving them some dipping options and also thought it was a good excuse for doing some gastronomic guesswork with multiple sauces. I used center cut pork chops which were coated on one side with chopped shallots, a liberal amount of guajillo powdered chiles, and kosher salt. These rested at room temperature for 90 minutes.

The mango chutney was intended to be a medium for a new chile / hot pepper I'm experimenting with, called urfa (also known as the Isot Pepper) which has a smoky, caramel raisin flavor with a late attack of heat. Like good wine, I'm finding that chiles have different moments where their flavors present themselves, but the same is true of their heat. Guajillo has an immediate and slow prolonged heat of lower to moderate intensity. The urfa chile is fruity like ancho but really evokes a caramelized earthy note, and the heats late attack plays very interestingly with the guajillo ... its like the burn comes soft & slow, soft and slow, getting a lot hotter, ooh that's pretty hot, smokey and fruit still there but heat fading, soft and slow... It's like the two of them together tease you into thinking there's not a lot of heat, but then scares you like you've got something really hot in your mouth, but then it gently fades without quite reaching raw jalepeno hot.

Anyway, the mango chutney was composed of the peeled flesh of 2 mangoes that were run through a few pulses in the blender to achieve a slightly chunky but wet consistency. To this I added some finely chopped scalions and the urfa chile flakes, a dash of sea salt, then served this at room temperature.

The cilantro cream was just 1/2 a bunch of cilantro, 1 cup of lite sour cream, a little sea salt, and a few splashes of high quality sherry vinegar. The vinegar should just be a background note, which play very well with the cilantro. I blended this on frappe to give it an airy consistency and refrigerated until ready to serve.

For the kiwi lime foam, I blended 4 peeled kiwis with the juice of 3 limes briefly to just liquify. Then strained and added crytaline fructose, a pinch of kosher salt. I then blended with a little bit of lecithin granules to emulsify in some air ... really I was going for an "air" here, but wasn't able to find a good mix of lecithin that would produce the textural results. Rather than ruin the flavor by overdoing the emulsifying agent, I settled for a loose foam.



The three sauce were all successful in flavor, and I'll keep working on that last foam to get the texture right. The cilantro cream seems to be very versatile for other applications, simple and scrumptious. The mango chutney stole the show for me, that urfa is something I'll have to experiment with a lot more, very interesting flavor. The pork chops were served with onion rings and broccoli. The onion rings were a good idea, as these were also fun for my kids to dip.

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