Occasional recipes: Piquant Pork Chops

More from The Cook's Recipe Collection

• Pork chops [though loin steaks are similar and don't have those pesky bones]
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp mustard powder
• 2 tsp tomato puree
• 1/2 pint beef stock
• 1 tbsp Worcester sauce
• 2 tbsps fresh lemon juice

1. Heat some oil, brown chops on both sides. Remove from the pan and place in an overproof dish or casserole.
2. Fry the onion until lightly browned.
3. Stir in sugar, mustard powder and puree. [If you have previously mixed sugar and mustard powder together, battle evil temptation when stepson indicates intention of eating the mixture. Resist and warn him off.] Add stock and bring to the boil.
4. Stir in Worcester sauce and lemon juice. Season to taste.
5. Pour over chops and cook in an oven at gas mark 4 for 40-45 minutes until the meat is tender.
6. Optional: if your stepson has gone out to feed his grandmother's neighbour's cats, and still hasn't come back, move food to lower down in the oven. All that happens is the meat gets even more tender. When he eventually saunters back home and asks "when's food ready?", reply "in minus twenty minutes."

Goes well with couscous, especially as there's a lot of sauce to soak up. Also goes well (under slight protest) with the first batch of sprouts for the year, mainly because you can smother them in sauce-soaked couscous and they taste quite decent. Oddly.