- [Alison] You guys are
gonna lose your (bleep) with this pork chop. - [Director] I can't believe that we're gonna have this pork chop. - [Alison] Yeah, you're
gonna eat this whole dinner. - [Director] And you ate more of this pig, this is from one pig? - Oh yeah. I got split pea soup, ham hock, same pig. - [Director] Wow. - [Alison] I got sausage, same pig. - [Director] Wait, that's so cool. - I got Guanciale in that
freezer, same (bleep) pig. Okay chops, we ready? Hello everybody, welcome to Home Movies. (subtle Italian music) It's summertime, we're having dinner. The sun is still out, it's
nice, we're gonna eat outside. Even if that's like on a fire escape or whatever, like tiny
patch of patio you have. We're gonna drink wine and
we're gonna eat pork chop. Not just any pork chop, we're
gonna eat thick pork chop and then we're gonna use
that pork fat that's rendered to cook a vegetable. In this case, a gorgeous head of cabbage. We're also gonna make polenta. Because polenta is made with corn, what better way to serve
it than also with corn? Because like I said, it's summer. We're also gonna make
a little tomato salad, but you've all made a tomato salad. That doesn't need to be this tomato salad, this can be a tomato salad. What am I actually making
from June to September? And the answer is I'm
eating a lot of vegetables, A, obviously, and I'm
eating a lot of pork chops. I don't know why this is. Well, actually I do
know why this is because last year I bought a whole pig and I'm working my way
through the cuts of whole pig, so the pork chop from this particular pig are the best pork chops I've ever had, so I did wanna use the
opportunities for making the case for like buy higher quality
meat and eat less of it and sort of augment the rest of your meal with like local produce,
vegetables that are in season. It really does make a difference not just to the impact
social welfare of the animal, the environment, local economy, fair wages for farmers, et cetera, but just like from a selfish
and logistical perspective, they're just more
delicious, they're better. They taste so wonderful. This isn't to say if you can't find like a sweet little bespoke farm and buy your pork chops there that you shouldn't make this meal. You can also replace this with
another meat of your choice. You could also leave
the meat out altogether and just double down on all the rest of the vegetables that we're gonna make today. All that to say is like you don't need to do much to a pork chop when the meat itself
is really, really good. We don't need that much meat in our life. It should be a luxury,
it should be a delicacy and the better quality
it is to begin with, the less you need to do to it. I sort of feel like doing anything more than salt
and pepper to pork this good would be doing it a huge
disservice, frankly. Anytime I'm cooking a large piece of meat, the longer in advance that
you can season your meat, the better. Don't do it more than
like 48 hours in advance, especially with red meat because it can start to sort of oxidize and like almost cure the meat, which I did the other day on accident. It wasn't very good. It wasn't inedible, it
just wasn't delicious. So do yourself a favor and before you start
cooking anything else, just season your meat, season
it with salt and pepper, set it aside and then like
start doing everything else. This is your fat cap right here and if this shape looks familiar to you, it is because it is
basically like a porterhouse, so this being the strip and
this being the tenderloin. Anyway, if you have the option
and you're going to a butcher and you're saying like, oh, you're cutting me a bespoke chop, ask them if you can get the whole sort of more porterhouse style. So I'm gonna set this aside and then we'll talk about our polenta, we'll talk about our cabbage. We're gonna make polenta
in a pot with water and what you do is you combine
the water with the polenta and you whisk it and a cooks. Okay, so I'm gonna fill up
this pot here with some water. I'm gonna salt it, I'm
gonna bring it to a boil. I am actually so grateful
that I have people that want a recipe from
something that I'm cooking because otherwise, I
would just cook forever and never write down a single thing, so you're all sort of forcing me to immortalize the stuff that I do, which for you I'm very grateful 'cause otherwise I don't
know what's going on. I don't know what I'm doing,
I don't know what I'm cooking. Couldn't repeat it if I wanted to. (water pouring) I'm on high 'cause I want it boiling fast. Corn on corn, what else is there to say that hasn't already even said? It is a dish that wants to exist. It's kernels of corn that are
cooked in butter and garlic and paprika and chili and whatever, spooned over polenta,
which is made with corn. It's corn on corn. I will say, however you wanna
go about getting your corn, get that corn, get the corn. If that means you're using
frozen kernels in a bag, great, I love that for you. Wow, and that is how you shuck a corn. That was incredible. Again, I've said this before, but I'm a very competitive
person, most of all with myself and so shucking corn is like a game to me where I'm like, how fast can I do it? How can I do it with the
least amount of steps? Like can I peel everything off without like one little piece
of silk lingering on the corn, like it's sick. I will say I did like a nine
out of 10 on this though and that, I'm pretty happy with. Wow, this is fun. I'm winning against myself. Okay, to take the corn off the cob, there are a million ways, I can like put a bowl under the thing and grate it into the,
whatever, it doesn't matter. Just get the corn off the cob. Somebody the other day
asked me on my podcast, "What restaurant trend are you sick of?" And I was like, I don't know. I was like, I don't really have like that many thoughts on it and then I thought, yes
I do, I hate corn ribs. I think that's so bad. I think the phrase corn ribs is upsetting. I think that when I've had them, there's always too much cob attached so that they're actually too hard to eat and they're not that enjoyable. They look really cool and people like to take pictures of it, but corn ribs, they gotta go. Okay, I'm gonna add
the polenta real quick. This polenta is awesome. This is just a really good product. Polenta, I'm not like
brand specific necessarily, but I do find like the
smaller, the more local, the like tinier mill that you're getting things like whole grains and freshly ground stuff
like polenta, the better. Like they're using really good corn, they're grinding it in
smaller batches, it's fresher. This was packed on January
25th and it is April 16th and this has been in my pantry
for at least two months. So there's just like tighter turnaround. I dunno, I love it. I did salt this water and
I'm gonna turn the heat down and I'm gonna go to low-ish. If you boil it too fast, what happens is the
water starts to evaporate before the corn has had a chance to cook. Kind of like rice. Anytime you're cooking
grains, low and slow, to give the grains the chance to fully hydrate and cook through before the water has escaped. So I'm at a three for
those induction heads and this is just gonna kind
of like slowly bubble away and I'll ignore it while
I go back to my corn. I'm gonna ignore the
corn to go to my corn. I am doing this also in real time just like I would if you were
just coming over for dinner and I was like, okay, well
what am I gonna do first? The corn is something that you can cook. The polenta is something you can cook. Both can sit for quite a while, so prep everything in advance that you can when you're having people over. I'm going down to a two, alert. This corn can be made vegan if you want, but we're already eating pork chops and so I think it's fine
for you to use butter. (package rustling) Ooh. Oh my god, you guys are gonna freak. - [Director] What? - Look at the color of this butter. - [Director] Oh my god, yeah. - [Alison] What? These come from really happy cows. God, this butter rules. If this doesn't turn you
on, I can't help you. All right, I'm gonna slide
this off of here and into here. Little corn spill can never hurt anyone is what I always say. Lots of pepper is really
nice in here because again, with like the sort of
simple less is more approach to summer cooking in general, it's really, really nice to
just like let corn be corn. Just a little chili flake and then you can say like a
quarter teaspoon of paprika. Okay, Olive Garden over here. You're cooking this corn
for like maybe two minutes. It should feel seasoned,
it should feel buttery. Still fresh. I.E, it should still have like
really nice texture to it. Hm. That's so good. It's like the best way to eat corn. So much more enjoyable
than like gnawing on a cob that's like gonna get in your teeth and you're gonna have to go floss like, oh excuse me, do you have any floss? Go yeah, it's upstairs in the thing and then you'd have to go inside. It's not my house, it's no and to that end, our polenta
is nearly done as well. This has nothing in it except for salt, so manage your expectations
on how delicious this can be, but it should still
like be pleasing to eat. It should be like soft
and creamy and like corny. Hm, it is all those things. It definitely wants that butter added, but it is cooked through, it is tender. What was that, like 15 minutes if that? I'm gonna turn off the heat. The thing with polenta is that it will seize the longer it sits, you know kind of harden over time. You can always thin it
out with a little water and that's even if you have leftovers, just a little water in a pot,
add your polenta, whisk it, it'll come back to life. Even though we are gonna
add Parmesan to this, which is salty, you kind of want the salt to be exactly where you want it to be. Because this has a bit of heat to it, I'm not gonna add too much, I'm not gonna add any pepper to this, but if I were not serving it with this and I was just doing
like the side of polenta, lots of freshly ground
pepper with Parmesan in this like almost like Cacio e Pepe
style polenta is so good. I think it's time to sear our pork chops because what's gonna happen then is they're gonna take like
15-ish minutes to cook. Oh, I don't know why I was looking at you. They're gonna take about 15 minutes to cook these pork chops, so
I'm gonna get them going now because while they rest, then we have to cook our cabbage, so we're still like a half an hour out, but a lot of that is
inactive cooking time, right? Like you put the pork chops in
here and not much else to do, O contraire. We are gonna use that time to kind of make a little quick salsa verde, which we not only can eat over our pork, but we're gonna use to
toss some fresh tomatoes and a thinly sized
onion for a quick salad. I'm gonna put a little
thin layer of olive oil just to get these pork chops started. Once that's very hot, I'm gonna add both of
these in the skillet. This is a 10 inch skillet. I wouldn't go smaller than this, but if you had a 12 inch, you
could definitely use that. That would be nice. Okay, I am on a medium high heat, that's seven for anyone
on an induction burner. After the first episode
of Home Movies came out, yeah, I had a lot of
people, the season two, people were like, oh, I
have an induction stove and now I don't feel so alone, plus they can kind of follow
along with being like, oh, you're at seven, I'm gonna be at seven 'cause it's kind of
standardized across inductions versus gas, which like my medium high is
maybe not your medium high and I'm gonna go ahead and do
the fat side out on the rim and the bone side in and I'm
going to nestle them together. You can do two chops at once. They shrink as they cook, so you're fine. You do wanna make sure they
have a little space between them so they don't immediately start steaming but these will cook and brown very nicely. They're also so thick that
there's less of a chance of them overcooking before they
get properly brown, which is yet another reason to seek out thick cut pork chops. Same thing with steak, but I like my pork chops
like on the medium rare side, like medium rare to medium. If that is not your vibe and you want it totally well done, I understand that but I don't respect it. It smells so good already, I kind of can't believe
it's just salt and pepper. Like I've cooked now many
things for this group of people that you cannot see at home
but I am looking at right now. I've not been more excited
to cook them anything than these pork chops because I think a really
good quality pork chop prepared very simply and very beautifully. The most delicious meat you can eat, better than a perfect chicken,
better than a gorgeous steak, better than a braised
lamb, nothing compares. Be very careful when you're
flipping your pork chop. There's a lot of fat that's
gonna render off this and do you see this burn here? Because I was doing this exact thing and I was cooking pork
chops for my friends. I was flipping the chop and I
didn't have a good grip on it and it landed in the skillet and hot oil and pork
fat went all over my arm and it burnt the (bleep) out of me and it was really awful
for about a week and a half and it's still not totally faded. I am applying all the things to it to fade the thing and the topical creams, but just careful out there. The two worst burns I've
ever gotten in my life were from brisket fat and pork fat, and both from mismanagement of tongs. I am gonna flip these. Brace yourself. Do it gently. (meat sizzling) (meat sizzling) Using your tongs to kind of press down will be really helpful. I'm gonna let these go
for another five minutes and then I'm gonna flip them so that some of that fat starts
to brown and render as well. Meanwhile, I'm gonna make
a little salsa verde. This is sort of like an all
purpose, no recipe recipe. Take some parsley, use
cilantro if you have it. It's like a loose dressing. You can add capers, anchovies,
chili flake, pickled peppers. Hm, pickled peppers might
be nice, I might do that. The idea is that this is a condiment that should
and can go on everything. I always use the stems of the parsley. It feels like it adds a lot of texture, it's also less waste. Okay, you don't have to go too, too fine. That's like up to you though. I'm gonna add a little garlic. It's been about five minutes. Oh yeah, so gorg. I actually believe in flipping
your meat as you cook it. I don't believe in a one and a one. It's annoying to write recipes that way, but the reason being is that
things brown at different rates and I think for like the most deliciously
even browning experience, flipping every so often
is gonna get you like the most evenly cooked and
the most evenly browned and that goes for any
sort of chop or steak, but especially pork. Okay, you're gonna go back in. (meat sizzling) And this is just gonna
kind of cook on its side, but we are trying to evenly brown the fat 'cause you will be
eating that fat as well. It's not like you're
trying to render it really. You're just trying to give
it a little bit of color. Oh, see I did it again. I didn't burn myself, I didn't
splatter, everything's fine. I got cocky. This is like an extra credit move, if you are scared of the skillet, which if you just saw what
happened to me, I would be too, but it is a nice move to kind
of like brown all the sides. Okay, that's nice looking, little yin and yang
back where they belong. Okay, now comes time for our cabbage. We're taking a brief cabbage intermission. For any sort of cabbage. This is so cute. For any sort of cabbage preparation, feel free to always peel
off the outer layer or two. Sometimes it can be a little wilty, or just like kind of flimsy, but have you ever seen
such a gorgeous produce? Nature. - [Director] It's a heart. - Yeah. Oh, it is. I am on like a full crusade to get people to be pumped on cabbage, but I will say it's a long road. A simple quartered head of cabbage will feed six to eight people, like each person could share a spear. We're just gonna put it cut
side down in the skillet. We're on like a medium heat. This doesn't take too long. (cabbage sizzling) Anytime you cook a big
piece of meat like this, you wanna let it rest five
to 10 minutes minimum. It could go longer. Meat does not need to
be hot when you eat it. Let it finish cooking,
let it like mellow out. To me, like the best rule of thumb to like knowing if your
pork is cooked through is to like just get it really
well browned on both sides and it kind of, if it's this thick, will always be like pink
inside, which is what I'm after. If your pork chops are
about half the size, they're gonna be a little
bit more well done, which I don't know. I don't, that's not as delicious to me. Hm, so I'm gonna flip this. Because we're cooking it
in that seasoned pork fat, there is some like
saltiness to it already, but we are gonna go ahead
and season it with salt as it cooks as well. All right, so when it's
brown on both sides, you can just flip it and give it a little time on the back end. It doesn't need to cook very long. It's not like a big, dense vegetable. In fact, I think it's nice
if it's not cooked very much because then it also
sort of pulls double duty as like a fresh-ish vegetable. I'm gonna finish the
salsa verde real quick. Little cherry vinegar for you. I'm extremely cherry vinegar
pilled as the kids say. It is nutty, it is flavorful,
it is hyper acidic. You need a little bit, it goes a long way. It goes with everything. Okay, so this little salsa verde, to recap is about one cup of
parsley, two cloves of garlic, finely grated or finely chopped. Let's start with one
tablespoon of cherry vinegar and then about half a cup of olive oil. The acidity and viscosity will be depending on
you and what you like. Things like finely chopped
capers, finely chopped anchovies, finely chopped pickled peppers in this would be so delicious
for your salsa verde. Could I have picked a smaller plate? This isn't, this isn't gonna
work, I need a bigger plate. Nickey Kehoe to the rescue
people, forever and always. Oh yeah, you've probably
noticed if you watch this show, but like I really do struggle
with spatial awareness being like this will fit in
this and it just doesn't. Maybe it means I'm an
optimist is what I'll say. I'm gonna add a knob of the good butter 'cause I have it out. The skillet is not on, it's just residual heat from that cabbage and while I'm at it, I'm adding another three
tablespoons to the polenta. Keep in mind, I'm feeding
like eight people. This is not, don't panic, everybody relax. The polenta, I'm gonna gently reheat 'cause we are gonna eat very soon. Okay, so this will loosen
up, this will loosen up, this will loosen up, but also
feel free to add more water and I'm gonna go back to
like a medium heat here. I have some capers. While the butter browns,
the capers will kind of start to crisp and shrink a little bit, which is exactly what we're after. I'm gonna do some sliced garlic. You can smash or slice
or chop or whatever. This is about the time
where I would be like, can somebody bring the wine
out, can somebody set the table? Like delegate, delegate, delegate. It's very difficult to do it all and I think that's the key
about like most entertaining that people fail to acknowledge is that when there's a bunch of people either at your house staying
with you, watching you, you can start to delegate and it doesn't have to all fall on you. I think like asking for
help should be normalized when we are cooking for others. All right, those are gonna keep cooking, that's resting, that's done. This is warming up,
already getting softer. I'm adding a half a cup of water. That three tablespoons of
butter went a long way in this. Hm, it already tastes so
delicious and so much better and that butter, you can like
really taste that butter. It is so good. All right, so I added another cup of water and these are pretty much done now. They're crispy, they're
toasted, butter is browned. If you have any thyme lying around, you can throw that in at the end as well. People also associate thyme
with the winter and the fall, maybe, I do, but it is so
abundant in the summer. Normalize thyme in the
summer, summer thyme. I'm gonna cut our tomatoes really quickly. Again, this is April,
it's not the summer yet, but if it was, these
tomatoes would be better. Anytime I'm doing a tomato salad, I like to do different fun shapes because that's what I believe in, that food tastes better
when it looks different. It's such a shame, like when
it is peak summer produce, it's like we're filming
Thanksgiving, you know? It's very difficult to align
your editorial calendar with what's actually
going on for these things, but no regrets. A little bit of raw onion
will certainly go a long way. Okay, so our tomatoes. We'll do a little flaky salt and then you can dress
them in the salsa verde since you already made it and because these
tomatoes aren't very good, not trying to make these
tomatoes feel bad or anything. We really want like to dress them well, it will go a long way. You can add as much or as
little Parmesan as you want. I've never measured Parmesan. When I grate it, I just kind of say when, but let's call it a
quarter to a half a cup and if you're like, I
want more, then do it. I'm not here to tell you what to do, I'm just here to tell you what I do. I'm so fluffy. You see? Do you see? - [Director] I love it. - [Alison] Hm, yum. Hm. It's too good, unfortunately. We can't have it, it's too good. Okay, time to carve the pork. Mm. Just like you would carve a porterhouse, you do wanna kind of like
carve it into two sections, but it is easier to cut this
pork chop into nice pieces if you carve it away from the bone here and it's very intuitive. You see the bone and you just
cut it away from the bone and if you're like, you know what? That, I don't wanna do that,
then just give people the meat and give them little forks and knives and tell them to figure it out. Mm, perfect, so good. The tenderloin will peel
almost right off the bone because it is tender, but look how tiny it is, it's so cute. Do I wanna use this plate? Feels like selling myself short. Yeah, I don't. I'm just switching plates here. Everybody stay cool. - [Director] I'm in on the
close up and it's glistening. - Oh, the meat? - [Director] Girl, it looks so good. - [Alison] It being pink
like that is a dream. Now comes the moment we've
all been waiting for. We're gonna pour this little
butter caper mixture over it. Sometimes after you do this, the capers really do like
absorb a lot of the butter, which is not a bad thing, but if you're looking for
a little bit more sauce, which I always am, don't be afraid. Again, we're feeding
like eight people here. Don't gawk at the amount of fat I'm using. How dare you? That was a lot of food we just made, but like honestly, it
didn't take that long. How long did that take,
an hour and a half? You're like three hours. - [Director] Three. - Three? - [Director] Three, yeah. It's six right now, we started at three. - No, we started at four. - [Director] Two, two hours. - And that's filming. So like nothing is real
when we're filming. - [Director] Sound rolled for 90 minutes. - Oh, sound rolled for
90 minutes, there we go and guess what? Surprise, I want more cheese. Ooh, the corn. Remember corn kid? I hope he's okay. Hollywood will ruin a boy. All right, your polenta
should be thin enough to pour and if it's not, you might
wanna add some more water. Make a little nice
little bed for your corn. - [Director] I didn't see
this coming, if I'm honest. - [Alison] What, the corn on corn? - [Director] Yeah, this plating is- - What? - [Director] Kind of blowing me mind. - Really? - [Director] Yeah. - [Alison] Okay well, turns out it's too much
corn for this bowl, but again, I'm only human, I'm not without my flaws
and I'm not always right. Again, spatial awareness of how much food can fit in a
vessel is not my strong suit. We all know that. Sorry. I'm moving the pork, I can't. Every time I look at it,
it's stressing me out. I need to put it on a bigger potter. The pork needs to breathe. This is not part of the recipe. You do not need to be as unhinged as I, but when something doesn't fit, and there's a better way, I
wanna explore that better way. What is this, Le Bernardin over here? Eric Ripert, call me. Wow, I feel so much better already with that pork looking
the way that it does. This is the equivalent
of like you're going out, you're going to dinner,
you're gonna a party, and you're like, I'm
gonna wear this outfit and then someone's like,
babe, are you ready to leave? And you're like, yeah, just a second and then you change your outfit and then you look in the
mirror and you're like, this doesn't work either and then you change your outfit again and then you come out and
he's like, oh, you changed and you're like, yeah and then you realize you
changed, but the weather's wrong, so you change again and by the
time it comes time to leave, you've had like eight outfits on and that's what I just did with this pork. You always wanna try your food
before you serve it to others to make sure it tastes good. You wouldn't know that
tomatoes outta season. I dare you to tell me that
that tomato is not in season. Cabbage, surprise dill announcement. It's quite nice to have
like a platter of meat and also a platter of vegetables that feel just as elaborate,
just as expansive, just as delicious and
interesting as your meat does. Oh, you know what I was gonna do? I was gonna squeeze a little lemon. I had one lemon. The lemon wants to be
served with both the pork and the cabbage, to be honest. Hm, perfect, no notes, amazing, 10 stars. 40 outta 40, flawless,
can't be improved upon. I mean this is, to me, a lot of work, but a labor of love. So we made a delicious summer meal, but it doesn't have to be labor intensive. It doesn't have to be like complex, it doesn't have to have
a thousand ingredients. It can be done. It's a beautiful day. I'm wearing a light denim,
just like I like it. What is this, a light Crushable Red. Absolutely, sign me up. Everybody gets a glass,
let's go, it's dinnertime. Gonna have a pork chop and we're gonna eat dinner
together as a family. - [Director] How'd you make this? - [Alison] It's like Alison
Roman's home for the boys. (everyone laughing) Summer camp for the boys. That's so funny. Yeah, and now you work there. (plates clanking) Yeah!
