Braised raspberry-chipotle pork loin and orzo salad

I love winter more than any other season, especially the making and eating of wintry food - breads, hearty soups and stews, and all incarnations of starchy yams and squashes. Occasionally though, during the cold months when I've been eating heavy wintry food day after day, my mouth waters for something reminiscent of the warm summer days when it's too balmy to eat anything but spicy meats and light, fresh salads. With this in mind, I decided to braise pork loin chops in a sweat-inducing raspberry chipotle sauce I picked up from Costco and put together an almost effervescent cold orzo salad.


I started out with a whole pork loin (partially frozen to facillitate cutting) and cut it into 1/2 inch slices. Hazel helped.


Next, I seared the meat well on both sides. This has two purposes: it seals in the juiciness of the meat, and it creates "fonds," which are the brown caramelized bits of meat left in the pan. Fonds create a special flavor when mixed with liquid. I mixed about a cup of the raspberry chipotle sauce with a cup of water and poured in the pan, scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon to loosen and incorporate the fonds. I then added the pork chops back to the liquid and turned the burner down to a low simmer.


Once the meat was taken care of, I gathered the ingredients for the salad: two cups of orzo (cooked and cooled), four tablespoons of olive oil, two tomatoes (chopped coarsely), the zest and juice of one lemon, and 1/4 cup of mint chiffonade. To create a chiffonade, or thin ribbons, you stack leaves of mint (or basil, or whatever other leafy herb you are using) and roll them up tightly. You then slice the roll crosswise thinly, creating perfect slivers.


After all the dirty work:

I then added all these ingredients together with the cooled orzo, including the lemon juice and olive oil. This picture is pre-stirring.


After stirring, the salad went into the refrigerator for 30 minutes while the meat finished its braise.


The finished product: sweet, spicy, fork tender pork and a fresh, summery salad.