Ox Maple Brined Pork Chops with Potatoes Au Gratin

Maple Brined Pork Chops with Potatoes Au Gratin

We are lucky enough to live less than a mile down the road from one of the most popular restaurants in Portland, Ox.  We’ve spent an anniversary there a birthday and have taken a few out of town guests there.  They have absolutely spectacular food, much of which is cooked in their open Argentinian style grill.  If you are ever there, you MUST get the pitcher of martinis with Grandma Agnes’s pickles.  Phenomenal.  You will not regret it.  Unless you have 2 pitchers, in which case you’ll never forgive me, but that’s beside the point. 

Until recently, they had a great Maple Brined Pork Chop on their menu whose recipe has since been revamped (not as good, in my very humble opinion).  However, they have a great cookbook called Around the Fire, and the original recipe is preserved forever in there.  Yay for books!

Here is the recipe, adapted very little for ease of trailer cooking!  Fyi – I’m partially using someone’s review of the cookbook to recreate this recipe, but I know it’s not the cookbook version because of the type of sugar used.  So I am recreating somewhat from memory. 

Maple Brine

¼ cup kosher salt

¼ cup pure maple syrup

2 tbsp sugar (I’ve used brown sugar and white sugar no problem, but I think they actually use something like muscovado sugar??  I don’t have the cookbook with me to confirm.)

2 tbsp dried thyme

1 tsp black peppercorns (I cannot for the life of me get the top off our single use peppermill, so I just grind away and put about a tsp of ground pepper in there.)

2 bay leaves (I don’t have any of these in the trailer, so I’m missing out on this flavor, but they are still bomb chops, just sayin’.)

1 head garlic (I didn’t have any cloves last time I made this, so I used the squeeze garlic, GASP!, and it was fine.  Trust me.)

6 cups of water                

Pork Chops

4 bone in pork loin chops, about 1 ½ inches thick each

2 tbsp olive oil

Sea salt for seasoning

To make the maple brine, combine the salt, syrup, sugar, thyme, peppercorns, bay leaf, garlic and water, bring to a boil, and simmer until all the salt is dissolved.  Take off the heat and let steep for 30 minutes.  Cool completely.  If you are in a pinch and need to get the meat in the brine quickly, use half the amount of water and add ice until you get to 6 cups total brine.  The cookbook calls for straining the brine at this point, but I don’t have a strainer, so I pick the big stuff out and put it in a zip lock bag and set to the side. 

Place the pork chops in the the zip lock along with the brine and double bag it with another zip lock.  For extra safe keeping (and safe trailer handling) place the double bagged zip lock and place into a large plastic container to prevent leakage.  Keep in fridge for up to 48 hours.  I have brined these for 24 hours and 48.  My favorite is 48, but you do what you want.

To cook the chops, remove from brine, rinse with cold water and pat dry with paper towel.  Oil all sides of the chops and season with salt, though I’ve found it needs no additional seasoning after the brine.  Grill for 4-5 minutes each side until internal temperature reaches 145 degrees.  Finish the chops by holding with tongs to quickly sear the ends and fatty edge. 

I’ve served these with many things from the Ox cookbook, but only at home.  For the purposes of this post, I’m going to provide my easy recipe for Potatoes Au Gratin, Trailer Style, since that’s what we served the chops with in Savannah.

Potatoes Au Gratin, Trailer Style

Ingredients:

Butter

Potatoes (We used Yukon Gold)

Cheese (We used cheddar and parmesan)

Milk or Half and Half

Flour

To make potatoes, grease a throw away aluminum pan with butter.  Peel and very thinly slice potatoeslayer the bottom of the aluminum pan with potatoes.  Sprinkle with Cheese and flour and spoon a little bit of milk over the top.  Season layer with salt and pepper.  Repeat the same process with each layer until pan is filled to the top.  Cover the top of the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 25 minutes at 375 degrees.  We did this in the toaster oven, but you can easily use a camp oven or open flame.  Just make sure to have enough space between your fire and your pan so it doesn’t stick.  After 25 minutes, remove the foil and bake for 10 more minutes, or until you have a nice golden bubbly crust and a knife goes easily into the potatoes.