Baked Pork Chops Topped with a Maple Orange Glaze

Last week was my niece’s first birthday. To celebrate her special day I pulled out two large pork tenderloins from one of my favorite local family farmers, Stamps Family Farm.

These pieces were large.  Bone in and had it of been cut would have made perfect pork loin chops.

Not to dispair, I took my pieces of pork to our local Mexican grocer and they cut the pieces of meat into about 30, 1/4″ thick tender pork chops. Just the way we like them.  In Spanish it’s called, lomo de cerdo.

They’re thin, which makes them easy to saute, grill or bake.

For the party we grilled about half of them and everyone was so pleased with the taste.  Of course that had more to do with the quality of the pastured Berkshire hog with it’s juicy and flavorful fat that we don’t ever trim.

With so many leftover, we split the rest of the uncooked meat and I decided to bake mine at home for a quick and easy Monday supper. To give it something a bit different, I came up with an orange and real maple syrup glaze highlighted by the flavors of one of my favorite spices, sage.

It taste wonderful on pork dishes especially homemade sausage which I’ll share soon 😉

Since sage is a perennial, I’m growing a lot of it this year to plant at my urban homestead in hopes to harvest my own fresh and to dry.

The glaze was perfectly sweet with a hint of spice that complimented the loin chops well.

Now I just wish we had more of them but we’ll have to wait patiently for this years hog harvest at the end of the Fall.  I can’t wait.

Baked Pork Chops Topped with a Maple Orange Glaze

Ingredients:

• 4-6 thin cut pork chops
• 1/4 cup real maple syrup
• 1/2 tbls mustard
• 1/4 tsp ground sage
• 1 tbls apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
• 1 tbls arrowroot powder (sub corn starch)
• salt and pepper to season

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 375F

2. Lay the pork chops into a baking dish and season with salt and pepper.

To make your glaze

1. In a small sauce pan bring the syrup, mustard, ground sage, 1/2 tsp salt, and cider vinegar to a slow boil.  Mixing well.

2. In a small bowl, mix in 1 tbls arrowroot powder into the orange juice to combine.

3. Slowly drizzle in the orange juice with arrowroot powder into the syrup making sure to stir constantly.

4. Continue stirring until the mixture returns to a boil and the sauce thickens.  3-4 minutes.

5. Pour the sauce over the pork chops and bake for 45 minutes.

Serve with a side of homemade potato salad.

Buen Provecho!