Pork chops and mint béarnaise
Pork chops with St.Bernardus Tripel and mint béarnaise
Ingredients
For the pickled pork chops: 900 ml water, 2 bottles St.Bernardus Tripel, 1 tsp juniper berries, 1 tsp peppercorns, 2 cloves, 1 tsp nutmeg, 375 g salt, 375 g sugar, 1.4 kg pork chops
For the mint béarnaise: 3 egg yolks, 3 tbsp St.Bernardus Tripel, a dash of vinegar, 250 g clarified butter, pepper, salt, 2 shallots, 30 g mint leaves
Preparation
Pickled pork chops
Bring the water to a boil with the St.Bernardus Tripel. Add the juniper berries, peppercorns, cloves, nutmeg, salt and sugar to the mixture. Make sure that all the ingredients are dissolved. Allow the pickle to cool down to room tem-perature. Place the pork chops in the pickle overnight so that the flavours are absorbed. Then rinse the pork chops and pat dry with paper towels.
Mint béarnaise
Melt the butter, scoop out the white flakes. What is left, is clarified butter. Separate the eggs, put the yolks in a mixing bowl and beat them with a whisk. Do not use the egg whites. Add the vinegar and St.Bernardus Tripel. Beat both ingredients with a whisk until frothy.
Pour the mixture into a tall saucepan. Put it on a gentle fire and keep whisking continuously. Take the sauce away from the heat now and again to keep the temperature under control. Continue until you have a frothy sauce in which the whisk leaves its mark.
Pour the clarified butter little by little into the airy mixture of yolks and gastrique, and keep whisking the whole time. Take the sauce away from the heat and season it with pepper, salt, the chopped shallot, freshly chopped mint and a dash of lemon juice.
Finishing touches
Preheat the over to 180 °C. Melt a lump of butter in a frying pan and sear the pork chops. Then place in the preheated oven for 1 hour at 150 °C. Serve de pickeled pork chops with the mint béarnaise, baked baby potatoes sea-soned with rosemary and a crispy tomato salad.
Enjoy!
This recipe was made by Filip Lebbe of our rooftopbar Bar Bernard (Watou, Belgium) for our book "75 years St.Bernardus: a brewery hidden in the hop fields". Have you used any of our beers in your own tasty recipe? Share it with us at marketing@sintbernardus.be and who knows, your efforts may well be rewarded.