Nothing says appetizing like “pig vag”.

That’s what our friend Squallie called this particular dish while in its preparation stages. While it’s not the most enticing of descriptions [and if it is enticing to you, we here at Food Shenanigans do not condone bestiality and are now judging you] it is fairly apt, as evidenced by the photo on the right. Granted, it doesn’t look anything special now, but man, when this was done, it was good. I had been wanting to make pork chops for awhile now, and my husband wanted me to make them like his mother did, with stuffing. Of course, he had no idea how they were stuffed or with what, so I started looking at various recipes and throwing out ideas at him. When I said the magical combination of cornbread, chorizo and cheddar cheese, he was sold. The idea came courtesy of Eggs to the Apples and the execution was mostly mine as I forgot to print out the recipe and didn’t feel like looking it up when I got home that night.

The idea is pretty simple and you can really use whatever you’d like for your own recipe. I went with a pared down version of the original, as I didn’t think I could convince the husband that he wanted to eat cooked dried cranberries and I couldn’t find fresh sage at the grocery store. Below is the recipe I ended up going with, and approximate measurements as .. it was late, and I was hungry.

4 thick pork chops, split in the center so that you have a pocket for the stuffing
2 cups of cornbread, cubed
3 chorizo links, casing removed and diced
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 T vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 F. Start the chorizo cooking in one pan. In another pan, heat the two tablespoons of oil. Season the pork chops with the salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Sear on each side for 2- 3 minutes, until starting to caramelize [the inside will be raw, but will finish cooking in the oven].

Once the chorizo is cooked through and starting to brown up a little, remove it from the heat and add it to the cubed cornbread, along with two tablespoons of the rendered fat from the chorizo. Mix that up, adding however much of the chicken broth will be needed to make the stuffing come together and be moist enough to go in the oven for 8 minutes and not completely dry out. Once the chorizo, cornbread and broth are mixed together evenly, add in the cheddar cheese and give it one last mix.

Stuff as much as you can fit into the pocket in each of the chops. I overstuffed mine, but that’s only because I realized I made way too much stuffing. Luckily, the extra stuffing didn’t go to waste, as the husband ate it immediately upon finding it on the counter. Bake in the oven for about 7 – 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chops. Cover with foil and let them rest for a few minutes after coming out of the oven.

These were delicious! Well, I have to admit, it’s really the stuffing that was delicious. Pork chops aren’t my favorite by any means, so the stuffing was really the reason I made them. There’s some sort of crazy magical chemistry that must have happened while in the oven, because the stuffing just worked so perfectly. The spicy and sweet chorizo complemented the sweet cornbread so well, and cheese just makes everything better. I feel like I’ll try to shove this stuffing into anything I can get my hands on. And… sorry for that image. Here’s another picture, that’ll make it better: