There’s been a lot of flap lately about magazines and newspapers being rendered obsolete by the internet. I hope this never comes to pass. It’s true that for most of my culinary inspiration, I use the web, but to use the web, you have to have at least some inclination as to what you are going to make. It’s on days when I have *absolutely no clue* what I want to cook that I hit the books (or magazines). And every once in a while, I discover that I want to make something I had no idea I wanted to make, until I saw that glossy full page picture of it.

This was how the beans and smoked pork chops came to be. Maybe it was the cold weather and the stick-to-your-ribs-ness of the dish that drew me to it, but whatever the reason, I decided I wanted to make good, old fashioned pork and beans. A recipe for which I had absolutely none of the ingredients. The smoked chops were surprisingly easy to find, at none other than PorcMeilleur (a small, local butcher shop at the Jean Talon market), and besides that, it was all pretty basic.

Smoked Pork Chops and Baked Beans

Serves 4-8 (depending on the number of pork chops)

Don’t be scared off by the amount of time this recipe takes. Most of that time is not spent doing active prep work, and, if you need to “pause” the whole operation for a few hours, everything is pretty robust.

·1 lb dried white beans such as Great Northern or navy.
· 1 small onion halved
·1 tbsp Olive oil or butter
·1 medium onion finely chopped
·1 can (126 mL) tomato paste
·1/2 cup fancy molasses, or 1/4 cup fancy molasses, and 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
·1 tbsp dijon mustard (or 1 tsp dried mustard)
·1 tsp paprika (I used smoked paprika)
·1/2 tsp salt
·4-8 smoked pork chops (at least 1/2 inch thick), preferably bone-in
·1 tbsp olive oil
·1 tbsp cider vinegar
·Black pepper
·fresh thyme

1. Soaking the beans:

In a large pot, boil the beans, one onion (halved) and a few bay leaves in water (enough to cover the beans by 2 in.) for 8 minutes. At this point, you can either let the whole operation sit at room temp for an hour, or in the fridge overnight (I left mine in the fridge overnight).

2. Cook the beans:
Preheat the oven to 300°F and position a rack just below center.

In a large oven-safe pot or dutch oven, over medium heat, heat a 1 tablespoon of olive oil and cook the onion until soft. Then, add tomato paste, molasses, maple syrup (if using), mustard, salt and paprika, and stir until combined. Stir in 4 cups of cold water. Drain the beans, and add them too. Bring the whole lot to a boil, tuck in a couple thyme sprigs, cover, and put in the oven.

Bake, covered, for 3 hrs, stirring occasionally.

After 3 hours time, stir in the vinegar. At this point, you can move directly to cooking the pork, or leave the beans to sit at room temp for a couple hours (this was what I did), or let the beans cool and refrigerate for a few days, or let them cool and freeze them.

3. Cooking the pork.

Preheat the oven to 300°F (if not already on). Rub poke chops with olive oil, and in a heavy pan, over medium-high heat, saute chops until lightly browned on both sides (5-8 min. per side). Place smoked pork chops in beans, partially submerged, overlapping as necessary. Cover, and cook in oven for 1 hr, until beans are infused with smoke from pork chops, and pork chops are heated through.

Remove chops, adjust seasoning on beans (adding splashes of boiling water if sauce is too thick) and serve, garnished with more fresh thyme.

I had never had smoked pork chops before, but wow. These were awesome. If I had to sum it up, I’d say a texture like smoked ham, but a taste like pulled pork, and *gorgeously* smoky. It’s possible (and likely) that we just got killer pork, but I like to believe that the way I prepared them had something to do with it.

The recipe, and the pic that started all this, is not up online yet (LCBO is annoying like that) but, I will link to it as soon as it surfaces.

Note: If, as was the case with us, you’re cooking this dish for 2 people with leftovers, this is what I recommend: make the full amount of beans. They’ll freeze well. When it comes to cooking the chops, I bought 6 but only cooked 4. The remaining 2 I froze, with about 1/3 of the cooked beans, so that all I have to do is thaw the lot and pop it in the oven. To reheat from refrigerated, its a similar process: bring beans and chops to room temp, put it an oven safe pot/dish (submerge chops so they don’t dry out) and put the whole lot in the oven until heated through.