One Hit, One Miss

I’d thawed some boneless pork loin chops for dinner earlier in the week. We also had leftover sauerkraut and fresh cabbage. These ingredients whispered in my ear: Eastern Europe. Off I went to the cookbooks. I found a recipe for pork chops with mustard and cornichon pan sauce from Pierre Franey’s More 60-Minute Gourmet. I also found a salad recipe that used both fresh cabbage and sauerkraut in The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors. I didn’t have any fresh peppers in the house for the salad, so I used some of Mama Lil’s spicy pickled peppers. Too many of them. We both enjoyed the pork served atop noodles, but the pickled peppers overwhelmed the salad. When you overwhelm sauerkraut, that’s a lot of capsaicin.