Brined Pork Chops with Butternut Squash Risotto

First we'll start with the pork chops. I made an orange brine c/o Alton Brown, which was my first attempt at brining meat. It worked really really well, and I've used it another time since (and will continue to do so and experiment...). It's a very easy technique, and does a good job adding enough flavor to the meat that you don't have to do anything else but cook it.


Ingredients:

• 1 quart vegetable stock
  
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp black peppercorns (I've always just cracked a lot of pepper)
• 2 bay leaves
  
• 1 quart orange juice, chilled
  
• 2 quarts ice water
  

Method:

• Bring 2 cups of the stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, and bay leaves to a boil. Stir to dissolve sugar and salt.
• Add remaining stock, orange juice, and ice water and pour into a large enough container (like...big. He recommends a 2 gallon bucket. I used a rubbermaid cake container).
• After the mixture has cooled (he says below 40F), add the meat and place in the fridge.
• Let brine between 8 and 48 hours.
• Remove, pat dry with paper towels, and cook as desired.

This time, I cooked the pork over a charcoal grill until it was done. It was so yummy!


Now for one of my favorites, the butternut squash risotto! I basically follow the same recipe for all of my risottos, and I just change the ingredients. So I've just included a reduced summary below, using the crawfish and saffron risotto as a guideline.

Ingredients: (same as before, with the following exceptions)

• 1 butternut squash, roasted (see below) and cut into ~1 inch cubes
  
• OMIT asparagus
• 12 sage leaves, chopped
  

Method:

• Follow the same directions for the risotto as before, adding some of the squash into the chicken stock, and the sage leaves at the end with the butter and parmesan.
  
• To roast the butternut squash, cut in half and remove the seeds (core). Drizzle the inside of each half with olive oil, and place face down on a pan.
• Bake at 400F, at least 30-45 mins. You'll be able to tell when it's done, when the squash is soft (I like it to be a little browned, also).
• Let it cool off, then cut it into the 1 inch cubes. Then, you can start the risotto!

Overall (as you can see at the top) the meal turned out great. My friend and I served it with a spinach/goat cheese/raspberry vinaigrette salad and a piece of roasted garlic loaf. This risotto is definitely one of my favorites, and I've made it many many times. This pairing worked great also. Definitely recommend it.