Pan-Seared Porkchops With Cabbage And Mushrooms Recipe

Published April 5, 2014 09:40AM

Protein-rich pork and vitamin-packed cabbage make this mushroom lover’s dish from triathlete-chef Robert Allen an optimal recovery meal.

Ingredients

2 bone-in pork rib chops
6 T olive oil
3/4 cup oyster mushrooms,
julienned
3/4 cup shiitake
mushrooms,
quartered
3/4 cup crimini
mushrooms, sliced*
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 small white onion, cut into small dice
1/4 cup white wine
1 small head of red cabbage cut in ½-inch strips (quarter, remove core, then slice)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F. To prepare the porkchops, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a small sauté pan over medium-high heat until almost smoking. Season porkchops liberally with salt and pepper. Sear the porkchops for roughly 3 minutes each side. Turn the heat down to medium-low and continue cooking for another 5 minutes per side. Remove and rest. To prepare the mushrooms, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the same pan as you seared the porkchops. Add onions and sauté until translucent, then add all the mushrooms and sauté for 6 minutes on high heat. Add garlic and sauté for another minute, then season with salt and pepper. Add the white wine and reduce until there is no more liquid. Remove from heat. To prepare the cabbage, in a casserole dish or roasting pan, coat the cabbage with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, plus salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, until the edges of the cabbage are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and toss the cabbage with the red wine vinegar. To plate, place the porkchops in the 400-degree oven for 3 minutes and gently warm the mushrooms. Place the red cabbage in the middle of the plate, lean the porkchop onto the cabbage, then spoon mushrooms half on the porkchop and half on the plate.

For a wine pairing, Robert Allen recommends a bottle of Bourgogne Rouge Pierre Guillemot 2010 ($21, Wines.zachys.com). “With a dish like this, it’s key to find a wine that has some earth tones but is still fresh and lively,” he says. “Guillemot is very much a salt-of-the-earth kind of producer, just like this dish. It’s a small, family-run winery with three generations working together to create simply delicious pinot noir with a keen eye on tradition and history of their land and winemaking process.”

Meet the Triathlete-Chef

Trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Robert Allen spent several years working as a personal chef and toiling in the New York City restaurant scene before landing in the wine business. He now works as the director of the private clientele division for Zachys Wine and Liquor, the largest wine auction company in the world. Allen works with the top 5 percent of Zachys’ client base, talking to collectors and helping them to curate their wine collections (and occasionally cooking for them). Allen, who started racing triathlon a few years ago, tries to pair his trips with triathlons—this year, he’ll be racing Ironman 70.3 Texas in Galveston before spending several days doing wine events in Houston. He raced his first and only Ironman at Coeur d’Alene last year, but thinks he’ll stick to half-Ironmans and Olympics for now. “I really like the racing,” he says. “I like the competitiveness, I like going to the events, I like traveling to new places.