Pork Cutlets in a Hot and Sweet Cherry Pepper Sauce is one of my sons favorite meals. In fact, we often make it together. The mixture of the 2 kinds of peppers gives this sauce a little bit of sweet and a lot of zing. And trust me when I say this meal is quick and easy and is sure to dazzle. I like to serve this meal with roasted potatoes and salad. Such a delicious meal.
A few details about this meal….I purchased these thin pork cutlets at Guintas Meat Farms. They were perfectly trimmed and lean. Believe it or not I actually think pork cutlets are more flavorful than chicken. So you can even do this recipe with no sauce and the cutlets are just amazing by themselves.
I also use my Italian style breadcrumbs. I highly recommend that you make them. They are great because you could make a large batch of them and store them in your freezer. If you do not want to make them, you could use store-bought Italian style breadcrumbs, and add grated Pecorino to them.
Pork Chop Cutlets in a Hot and Sweet Cherry Pepper Sauce
Ingredients
Serves 4
3/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 Garlic Cloves, sliced
8 Thin Pork Cutlets (about 1 ¾ lbs)
2 Eggs, beaten
2 Cups Italian Style Bread Crumbs
8 Tbsp. Butter
⅔ Cups Hot Cherry Pepper Strips In Vinegar, drained
⅔ Cups Sweet Cherry Pepper Strips in Vinegar, drained….reserve the vinegar when draining
2 Tbsp. Vinegar from the Hot Cherry Peppers
⅓ cup White Wine
¾ Cups Low Sodium Chicken Broth
4 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
1 ¼ tsp. Salt
½ tsp. Pepper
3 Tbsp. Fresh Chopped Parsley
4 oz. Mozzarella, shredded
Method
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Set up an assembly line to bread your cutlets. Beat your eggs in a bowl and put your breadcrumbs in a shallow dish or pan. First dip the cutlets in the egg and then dredge in the bread crumbs on both sides. Repeat this for all of the cutlets.
Heat up the olive oil in a large frying pan on low to medium heat. Add a few cutlets to the pan, and cook on both sides until the cutlets are crispy. Remove from the pan and place the cutlets on paper towels to remove any excess oil. Repeat to cook all the cutlets.
Place the cooked cutlets in a single layer in a shallow baking pan.
Once the cutlets are all cooked, remove almost all of the oil from the pan. Leave some of the remaining brown bits in the pan. Add the butter to the pan and melt. Add in the sliced garlic and saute for 2 to 3 minutes on a low flame.
Next add both the hot and sweet cherry pepper strips. Please note if you can not find strips you can just buy the whole sweet and hot cherry peppers and the vinegar from the jar. You will just need to take the seeds out of them and chop.
Add in the wine and using a wooden spoon scrape the bits off the bottom of the frying pan. Turn up the heat just a little. Sautee for about 4 to 5 minutes and the wine will reduce.
Add in the chicken broth, lemon juice.
Season with salt and pepper. Cook for about 6 to 7 minutes…you want the sauce to reduce a little and slightly thicken. Add in the parsley.
Put some of the shredded mozzarella on each cutlet. Pour the sauce around each piece and put in the oven for five minutes until the mozzarella is melted.
Remove from the oven and serve.
NOTE: if the sauce needs to be loosened a little you can always add in some more chicken broth.