Pork chop with honey mustard and balsamic sauce. There was nothing a good meal cannot fix.

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Japan had lifted the remaining emergency state for Covid-19 last week. To be honest i was reluctant to return to the office, as the case in Japan is low but not zero yet. I am perfectly comfortable working from home and without needing to commute, the quality of life was quite nice. I have more time to cook mostly. Fortunately there were not pressure from my job to get everyone back to office. Rather, the recommendation was to work from home if possible. Still I was torn between enjoying the work from home arrangement but also miss hanging out with my coworkers, i am not sure what i want.

I always find cooking soothing when i am stuck. Enjoying the results of my cooking is equally so. Throw in a glass of wine, then everything will be fine.

I found a pack of nice pork loin in the supermarket. This was not the cut i usually buy. In fact i do not remember when i last did. Pork would go great with my remaining bottle of white wine as well. There was not much to write about how to make a pork chop, as it was as simple as it gets. Season it with salt and pepper, throw it into a nice hot pan and grill both sides until done. Sauce was just mixing honey, mustard seeds and balsamic vinegar.

Compare to beef or lamb, pork is very easy to handle. There are no temperature preference, no such thing as medium rare, just have it cooked. That make pork chop a good dish to start on for newbies wanting to try on western meat dishes. It really could never go wrong.

The wine i had was Enfants Sauvages VDP cotes catalanes Cool Moon. It was a dry and refreshing white wine from southern France with delighting apple and pear fragrance. Normal pairing recommendation is poultry but since it has apple and pear, well, i do think it went quite well with pork. At least was an enjoyable night for me.