Make Matty Matheson's pork chop with maple Jack Daniel’s bacon sauce

What's better than a juicy double-bone pork chop? How about one that's also smothered in a maple bacon sauce? Chef and restaurateur Matty Matheson would agree  

Published: Friday 18th January 2019

Serves 4

Preparation time 2 days

Cooking time 50 minutes

"There’s nothing more Canadian than covering a pork chop with a maple bacon sauce," says Matty Matheson in his latest cookbook, the ingeniously titled: Matty Matheson: A Cookbook. 

"This is a dish that people still ask me about nine years after we opened. I’m talking about you, Junzy! Maybe just one person, but still...the salty, fatty, crispy, molasses-y, Jacky-mustardy sauce is what really made this pork chop. The chop itself was a great piece of meat (by no means, don’t let me mislead you), but if you put that sauce on a burning diaper filled with baby shit, you would be sucking that sauce off it like a soup dumpling from Chinatown. Ask your butcher for a centre-cut double-bone 430 g pork chop. This is the Rolls-Royce of pork chops. Also ask to keep a fat cap on—tell him not to trim that fat too much."

Ingredients

  • 10% brine (see note 1 in method)
  • 1 (430 g) double bone centre-cut pork chop
  • 225g slab bacon, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
  • 1 shallot, peeled and diced
  • 2 tablespoons Jack Daniel’s whiskey
  • 3 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp of grainy mustard
  • 60ml demi-glace
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • Canola oil
  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 tbsp thyme leaves
  • 1 tbsp rosemary

Method

  1. Brine the pork chop 24 hours. Dry the pork chop with paper towels and air-dry 24 hours on a wire rack set on a baking sheet in the refrigerator. (Do not season with salt and pepper.)
  2. In a medium pan set over medium heat, cook the bacon until golden and crisp, 10 minutes. Add 1 clove of the garlic and the shallot; deglaze with the whiskey, maple syrup, and mustard, and finally, add the demi-glace. Cook 10 minutes; you will know it’s ready when it bubbles up like caramel. Add the lemon juice, and if it’s too thick, add a few tablespoons of water. Keep warm on the stove.
  3. In a cast-iron pan set over medium heat, pour 12 mm of oil; sear the pork chop on both sides until golden brown, 5 minutes per side. Pour out half the oil, return the pan to the stove, and add the butter, the remaining garlic, and the thyme and rosemary.
  4. Baste the pork chop with a spoon and cook 3 minutes per side 3 times, flipping 6 times total, basting continuously. When done, place on a rack on top of a baking sheet and pour the butter over it. Let the pork chop rest at least 10 minutes before serving.
  5. Pour all the sauce on a plate, then carve the pork chop, fan it out, and display the beauty.

Note 1: 10% Brine – To make a 10% salt brine, pour warm water into a small pan. Add 100 g salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover and remove from the heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Put the ice in a bowl or a large measuring cup. Pour the brine over the ice and stir until dissolved. Allow brine to cool to room temperature.

From Matty Matheson: A Cookbook by Matty Matheson; photography by Quentin Bacon and Pat O'Rourke. Published by Abrams.

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