Smothered Low Country Pork Chops

I've got Damon Fowler in the kitchen with me

He's a food historian, a fellow Savannian, and a dear friend of mine

And he's about to share with us one of his recipes. His low country smothered pork chops

I just seasoned this side. I'm going to flip them over now and season the second side with a little bit of salt, pepper, and cayenne

Ooh, that is cayenne. A little bit of cayenne. Oh, yeah, this is cayenne. This is not paprika

This is a wake-up call. And those are beautiful chops. They are probably an inch thick, y'all, center-cut chops

A little bit of salt. Is there anything I can do to help you? Yes, could you put a little flour in here for me, please

All right, do you want it here? Yeah, just right there on that plate. You can wash your hands if you would like

Okay, I'm going to wash my hands. Damon, while I'm doing this, I don't want you to..

I wash my hands about 30 times when I'm in the kitchen. Well, I don't want you to put your finger in the wrong place

and that cayenne really lights you up. Oh, yeah. And I'm going to put a couple of tablespoons of butter

You know, we've got to have some butter in this. Yes, we do. And that's a little more than two tablespoons, but who's counting, right

Certainly not I. You know, you feel free to put some more if you need it here

We just get those lightly coated with the flour We don need them to be real heavy Okay so we just shake it off Yeah we just shake off the excess There you go Okay well I got you on pretty much high Yeah well that works for me

I'm going to let them brown on both sides. And while they're doing that, we'll come over and we're going to play with some peppers here

Okie doke. We've got some bell pepper. We've got chicken shnako here

And these are the characteristic flavors. You know, they always talk about that Holy Trinity in the Creole kitchen

Absolutely, yes. Well, it was here first. They don't like to hear that

So what I like to do is take the top off the pepper like that and then take the bottom off

And then you can just sort of push all those seeds out of the way. Then you can come in with the knife and cut through at that point and just lay the food flat

And then we're going to just cut it into pieces. I always pop out that stem and use every piece

I always use every bit of it, too. And I'll just give you one and let you go play with it over there

All right, there's a bell pepper. Ooh, that one's really pretty. Yes

All four of them are pretty to me. I just kind of love pig, you know what I'm saying

All right, now I see you've got some garlic over there. Would you like for me to

Yeah about three cloves of garlic So if you could peel those and mince those for me Okay and I going to start on the onion because I just going to cut this onion into strips

All right, now let me get you a plate, Damon. I think they're ready to come out, Paula

Okay. So now I'm going to put those peppers in and the onions

If you want to wait to put the garlic in, I always wait because garlic cooks at a different rate from peppers and onions

I want to get a little color on the onion, and I want the peppers to get a nice bright green

Ready for the caramel cake? Oh, I think so, yeah. I'm going to push this to the side, and then we're going to put these chops right back in here

And we're getting it off to the side. Then I'm going to take those peppers and onions in

and you're going to pour that little pork juice in that. Oh, we need to put that pork juice

Okay, I'm going to clean my hands up. If you'll put the peppers and onions back on top of the chops for them. Okay

Because what we want to do is we're smothering them with that. Now, I'm going to add enough broth to sort of half cover these things, about two cups

We don't want it to completely cover them. It really almost a braise that we going to do here One more thing I got to add to this before we cover it up is some Worcestershire sauce So I just grab it behind you here and we just dash a little of that in You know this is a real southern thing using lots

of Worcestershire sauce. We've got a bubble going, so let's go ahead and cover

it. Take some tinfoil and I'm just gonna work it together like this

because that's a pretty big pot. So look-a-there. We have a lid. Alright

We're going to let this simmer for about 45 minutes. Is that correct? About 45 minutes, until they're tender

They might be tender enough in 10 minutes for me. I am so hungry

I'm going to uncover those fabulous pork chops. And you can show me how you would plate this dish

Oh, my goodness. Great time of day. Damon, this looks fabulous

You know, these, look, look Oh, they're fork tender They're fork tender

Look, I'm even cutting through the bone Oh, my Look Celery root homemade mashed potatoes

Oh, Lordy, those potatoes were good by themselves Lord have mercy