Pork Scarpariello

This meal did not go exactly according to plan. I wanted to cook a version of the chicken scarpariello that I had eaten a few weeks ago. It was thin chicken cutlets with red and cherry peppers in a light sauce. It was slightly spicy and quite awesome.

I decided I didn't really want to eat chicken, so I was going to substitute in some pork. Hopefully the chef would be able to accommodate me.

I scanned some recipes online and came up with a rough ingredient list and recipe.

All was going smoothly until Gary showed up to play some Portal, or as he likes to call it, Holes.

I seared the pork on both sides with just a little salt & pepper. Then I started doing things in the wrong order (ugh). I poured some chicken stock into the pan to start the sauce. While this is one of the steps, I should have sauted the garlic and cherry/red peppers first in the pan. This is what I get for not writing down what I'm going to do ahead of time.

I dumped the stock out into a bowl and tossed the peppers & garlic into the pan with some olive oil. I then went and watched Gary play some Holes for about two minutes. When I came back in to the kitchen, there was a rather pungent pepper smell in the air. Woops. Combination of not enough oil, not enough movement in the pan and too much heat. The red peppers were a little charred (as you can see in the picture). I added a little more olive oil and watched them for a few minutes until the peppers were mostly soft.

I poured the stock back in along with some of the liquid from the cherry peppers (i also should have included white wine, but I didn't have any around) and put the pork in. I let it all cook for a while to let the liquid reduce.

Total cooking time was probably around 15 minutes.

It actually tasted pretty good, but I'd like to have the sauce be thicker next time. Maybe some cream and a little roux in there and it would probably be closer to what I was aiming for. I also forgot to put some of the parsley in the sauce that I had around the apartment.

The one major drawback to this operation was the apartment smelled like peppers for the rest of the evening. It may or may not have caused Gary to cough up a lung while attempting to solve 3D puzzles.