Pan Pork Chops with Chanterelle Mushroom Quinoa

After a somewhat difficult day, I came home and did what I’ve been doing a lot recently - cooking fresh food I forgot I bought with pantry ingredients I forgot I had. Tonight it was pork chops with some quinoa I bought in New Bedford over Thanksgiving.

Quinoa is some kind of food native to South America that when raw looks like small cous cous, except it’s a plant. When cooked however it looks like sperm or pollywogs or something, because it’s translucent and sprouts a 1/4 or so inch tail. Very odd. It needs to be rinsed clean of its outer layer of starch and simmered for 15 minutes. Very odd.

I sacrificed one of my cans of coconut water to the cooking liquid and added a cinnamon stick, salt, pepper, 1 bay leaf, toasted coriander seeds, some cloves, and reconstituted chanterelle mushrooms. It was sweet, flavorful, and an interesting substitute for the more common partner to pork chops - apple sauce. Interestingly it sort of has the consistency of apple sauce. The recipe possibly could have done without the mushrooms, but whatever, they were good and added texture. Next time I’ll probably try raisins instead of mushrooms.

This is actually one of the better dishes I’ve made in a while, thanks to the quinoa. My diet possibly could have done without the extra chop, but whatever, those were great too.

The quinoa recipe roughly breaks down as:

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
2 cups coconut water with pulp
handful of dried chanterelle mushrooms, reconstituted
pinch of salt, cracked pepper
8 cloves
25 toasted coriander seeds
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick