Paprika Butter Pork Chops

Just a quick one from me today, but I’ve just realised that I’ve never shown you my absolute favourite way of make pork chops for dinner: meet these deliciously smoky Paprika Butter Pork Chops. Pan fried and slathered in garlicky, herby paprika butter I usually serve them with a side of my mustard mashed potatoes and some peas from the freezer, and the butter from the pan poured over as a sauce. It is the one comfort food recipe I have committed to memory.

They only take 15-minutes (if you’re using supermarket-thickness chops), so if you were to switch out the potatoes for some simple boiled rice (which would lighten the dish a little too, but this is proper cold winter comfort food, so I do think you should make the potatoes if you have time!) allowing for a little leeway with this recipe you could easily get dinner on the table in just 20 minutes.

Cooking Pork Chops

Not having grown up eating pork, I was really intimidated the first time I came to make a pork chop, but it is actually really easy. If you get nice and thick ones, they’re almost impossible to screw up and dry out cooking them in a pan in butter like this, rather than finishing them in the oven like it says to do on the packet (though I feel I need to point out here you’ll always get much better flavour buying your pork chops from a butcher or an online store like Field & Flower^ambassador rather than the supermarket – I always try to, when possible more than any other meat!) Most supermarket pork will have a thin layer of fat that can go straight in the pan as here, but thicker, butcher ones with a larger fat cap (the name for the big bit of fat on a chop) you might need to score it with a knife so it doesn’t stop the chop sitting flat int he pan during cooking.

I got this method and the recipe (though I’ve altered it for ease and as I remember it each time I do it – recipes you cook from memory can be like that, changing subtly with every rendition) from Anja Dunk’s brilliant German cookbook Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings^{ad / gifted} which really gave me the confidence to cook pork at home. This really is one of those recipes that is more than the sum of its parts, and worth buying the book for alone, though there are so many great recipes in there – it is also the book from what I learnt how to make Zimtsterne, the German Christmas cookie I try to bake every season, as they taste brilliant and one tin will last the entire festive period.

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Smoky Paprika Butter Pan Fried Pork Chops

• Author: Rachel Phipps
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: 10 minutes
• Total Time: 15 minutes
• Yield: Serves 2
• Category: Dinner
• Cuisine: German

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Description

These easy 15-minutes Paprika Butter Pork Chops are served in a garlic paprika butter with fresh thyme, and are delicious served with mashed potatoes and peas.

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Ingredients

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• 2 thick cut pork chops
• 1 tbsp sweet smoked paprika
• freshly ground sea salt and black pepper
• 1/2 tbsp light oil
• large knob unsalted butter
• 1 large garlic clove, crushed
• 1/2 tsp fresh thyme leaves

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Instructions

1. Dust the pork chops with the paprika and a generous amount of salt and pepper so that they’re coated all over with the spices. I’ve given 1 tbsp of sweet smoked paprika as a guide; I usually just shake it straight out of the jar.
2. Heat a medium non-stick frying pan over a medium high heat. Add the chops and cook until brown on one side, taking the time with tongs to stand or hold the chops up on the edges to make sure the rind and their sides brown too.
3. Turn the chops and after a minute add the butter, garlic and thyme leaves to the pan. The butter should melt and the garlic should cook while the other side of the chop is browning. Spoon the butter over the top of the chops as they cook.
4. Check the chops are just cooked through before serving them alongside mashed potatoes and cooked peas, with the pan butter spooned over the chops.

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Notes

If you don’t have any garlic to hand – or, more likely in my house, you’ve not got any clean knifes with which to prep a clove – you can dust the chops with garlic granules at the same time as the paprika with good results.

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