Pork Cutlets with Brussels Sprouts

No, this isn’t your mother telling you to eat the hated Brussels sprouts. You’re going to have to trust me…they’re a wonderful, bitter, scrumptious veggie. But if you’re still totally against it, you can go to your room without your dinner, missy!! Sorry, what I meant to say is that you can substitute any veggie you want…this recipe is really about the sauce. As a matter of fact, when I made this, I used chicken instead of pork and I cheated by using frozen Brussels sprouts, so the meal I ended up with barely resembles the recipe.

Ingredients:
4 ½ -inch-thick boneless pork chops
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. paprika or smoked paprika
1 lb. Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
2 Tbsp. butter
1 8 oz. carton light sour cream
2 Tbsp. milk or half-and-half
1 tsp. packed brown sugar

First, I tossed my frozen sprouts into boiling water, following the package directions. Next, I heated a skillet with vegetable oil instead of butter. Make sure the pan is very hot – it helps to brown your meat. I coated the chicken in the flour mixture and cooked it for about 10 minutes – just make sure whatever meat you choose is thoroughly done. While that was cooking, I made up the sauce by combining the sour cream, milk and brown sugar.

Once the chicken is done, turn down the heat to low…if you don’t, you’ll end up with scorched sauce. I poured off any excess oil and scraped the bigger chunks of “stuff” that were left in the pan – but I didn’t clean the pan. I like the added flavor that you get from the chicken drippings (yeah, yeah, I can hear the collective ewwww). When the pan cools a little, add the sauce and whisk briskly so it doesn’t burn. Make sure you heat it long enough to get the sauce hot.

I really liked the flavor of this sauce, but I thought it was pretty runny. I think that might have been caused by using light sour cream instead of the regular kind. I was going for low-cal and low-fat, so that often makes recipes just a little “off.” The original recipe (not my altered one) claims to only have 395 calories and 22 grams of fat. So be a good girl now and eat all your Brussels sprouts!


(Click here for printable recipe)