Two Ways with Pork, Tomatoes and Semolina

[js]
I'm not particularly methodical when it comes to cooking. I don't work with a plan and I don't even go into grocery stores with a list. Usually, what's for dinner is whatever I feel like cooking that particular time.

Which is why it's quite interesting and amusing to me when I see patterns emerge. To wit, apparently when confronted with pork, my firing neurons tell me to go with tomatoes and semolina.

Semolina-crusted Pork Chop, with Tomato-Braised Cannellini

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's pork chop!

[js]
The picture is kind of funny methinks: it looks like a flying pork chop!

For a quick meal one day, I pan-fried some semolina-crusted pork chops in olive oil. Thinking that the pork chops will be quite lonely and sauceless, I immediately grabbed a can of cannelini beans and stewed them with tomatoes and garlic.

Baked Semolina Pasta with Pork Rib Ragu


[js]
Another time, I had roasted a couple of racks of pork ribs for dinner with guests. The pork ribs were simply rubbed with a mustard-thyme concoction. There was quite some meat leftover and I knew that people were not going to eat the pork in the same form.

Enter semolina pasta.

I had made a batch of semolina pasta some days before. I must have been thinking of comparing eggless semolina pasta with egg-yes pasta dough, but for whatever reason, the project must have been abandoned or postponed. The dough was just sitting all by its lonesome on a fridge door shelf.

Pork rib, meet semolina pasta.

And of course, tomatoes in the form of sauce. I proceeded to make a standard tomato sauce and added my meat to it to stew. I boiled the pasta and dropped everything into the pot to bake.

I added some breadcrumbs and grated cheese on top and called the whole thing dinner.



[js]
Maybe next time I'll try something different with pork, eh?

Enjoyed this post? Why not subscribe to our blog? Subscribe via reader or subscribe via email. Thank you!