Caramelized Pork Chops in Pineapple-Mustard Sauce

Ingredients:

3 1⁄2 tbsp canola oil
2 pork chops (3⁄4-inch thick)
1⁄2 cup fresh pineapple juice
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 cup fresh pineapple chunks
1 garlic clove, minced

Rest of recipe click here

The rest of the recipes for these dishes are on Domicile Magazine ‘Comfort Cooking – Panama Edition’ section (click here for recipes)

Whenever there is an opportunity to share Panamanian recipes, I try to take it!  The folks at Domicile Magazine requested that I share Panamanian comfort food recipes and actually most of the food I grew up eating falls in that category.  I chose to share these specific recipes because thatâ€s what I was craving at the moment.

When I was younger I wasnâ€t a very good cook, my thoughts were always focused on the results (ahem, eating) and not the process.  Thatâ€s why most of my childhood recipes are very practical. Cooking with rice, beans and meats was my forte.  I had most of my vegetables raw, unless they were root vegetables and those usually ended mashed or fried.

Culantro

Arroz con Culantro (Rice with Culantro)
Recipe click here

Up to this day I think it’s funny how difficult it’s to find culantro around stores.  Thatâ€s the herb we used the most at home or our “recao verde”, which is pretty much a ramita (sprig) one purchases ready with fresh: culantro, scallions and parsley.

The base for most of my “family sauces” are made with recao verde, and of course, garlic.

I loved cooking pork chops, smoked ones mostly because of how easy they’re to cook.  A good sauce on top would make miracles, no matter how over cooked my pork chop was, (we would really over cook our meat back then, my mom was always afraid of getting anyone sick).

Rice eventually became something easy to cook, versatile and delicious.  Rice is the reason why I could never do Atkins, I tried when I was around 15 years old, but after 30 days without rice I cried to the sight of it at home and broke the diet (I had a bad relationship with diets, Iâ€ll write about that someday).

And finally, my mom’s glorious bread pudding.  Her bread pudding that made up for a crappy week at school; it would become our snack of the following days and no matter how much she made, which was a lot, it was never enough.  I love my momâ€s bread pudding.

Mamallena – Panamanian Bread Pudding with Sangria
Recipe click here

Mamallena with Sangria-Rum Caramel Sauce and Vanilla Ice Cream