Italian meal with a Nordic touch

Photo updated in April 2009

Pretty much every time I browse my favourite foodblogs – daily then - I see something that looks gorgeous, seems reasonably easy to make and the recipe tiltillates my tastebuds. I often leave a comment saying that the dish looks tempting and make a mental note to myself to go over to blog A and try dish B asap. Sometimes it works. I’ve made Pertelote’s tuna and chickpea salad thrice; prepared chocolate chilli muffins and cinnamon tomato marmalade to recipes from Chocolate&Zucchini; got inspired by the blue potato dishes at Lex Culinaria and Delicious Days; and Gluten-free Girl's roasted basil peaches have been successfully served at many a dinner party in my house, to name just a few.

But more often than not I realise weeks, if not months, later, that I still haven’t got around to trying something yummy that caught my eye. The list of dishes belonging to the latter is endless sadly. So when I saw the crispy pork chop recipe at Anne's Food last week, I was determined to _really_ try it sooner rather than later. I was almost discouraged from doing so, as my favourite butcher wasn’t at the Edinburgh Farmer’s Market last weekend. And I’m a creature of habit – I _always_ get my bacon and pork from that guy, so I was quite upset not to be able to do this. However, the meat I got from one of the other stalls turned out to be almost (though not quite) as nice…

Anyway – Anne had bookmarked a recipe for crispy parmesan coated chops in Nigella’s Forever Summer, using pork chops as opposed to lamb chops prescribed by the luscious cookery writer. I’m not really keen on lamb, so I used pork too. I used crushed rye crispbread instead of breadcrumbs/panko (this is the Nordic touch:), and I never have any breadcrumbs in my house anyway). I omitted the ‘dip the chops in the egg’ part, as suggested by Raquel. And one of her readers suggested using sage, a herb I subsequently incorporated into the side dish.

It was really nice and easy meal that generously fed 2 Estonian lassies. No leftovers though.

Italo-Nordic pork chops

2 de-boned pork loin chops
4 crushed rye crispbreads (thin type, Finncrisp is good)
25 grams grated parmesan
salt
black pepper
olive oil for frying

Pound the pork chops thinner between two sheets of cling film.
Mix breadcrumbs, parmesan, salt and pepper, press pork chops into the mixture.
Fry in olive oil on both sides, until golden brown.

To serve with:

Sage pasta
(Salveimakaronid)

250 grams fresh tagliatelle
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp oil
2 sliced garlic cloves
3-4 shredded fresh sage leaves
some grated lemon zest

Boil the tagliatelle al dente.

Heat oil and butter in a saucepan, add garlic, sage and lemon zest. Fry gently, until garlic is slightly golden. (If you have any seasoned bread crumb and parmesan mixture left, you can throw that into the pan as well, like I did).
Drain the pasta, mix with the sage and garlic butter.

Serve parmesan crusted pork chops alongside tagliatelle in sage and garlic butter.


Photo updated in April 2009


Oven roasted Conference pears with a caramelised oats' topping
(Ahjupirnid)
Recipe from October 2005 issue of the Finnish foodmag Ruokamaailma



The dessert was also Nordic: oven roasted Conference pears with a caramelised topping of oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. The filling is simply mixed, the pears are covered with it and then baked in the 200C oven until soft & golden.

Served with Green&Black’s Vanilla Ice Cream..