Pan-Seared Veal Chop with Swiss Chard Gnocchi & Romesco
Pan-Seared Veal Chop with Swiss Chard Gnocchi & Romesco
Pan-seared veal chops with a Tuscan twist! Decadent pillows of potato gnocchi, tossed with swiss chard and topped with tart sundried tomato Romesco sauce.
Ingredients
- Two 12-ounce veal loin chops, about 1 inch thick
- Kosher salt and pepper for seasoning
- 2 TBSP butter + 1 tsp
- 1 TBSP olive oil
- 1/2 cup heavy creamy
- 1 16 oz package potato gnocchi (or make your own)
- 2 cups swiss chard leaves, stems removed and roughly chopped
- For the Sauce:
- 1 cup sundried tomatoes
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1/2 cup almonds, toasted
- 1/4 cup tomato purée
- 2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/3 cup olive oil
Directions
- Step 1 Prepare your Romesco sauce by placing everything in a food processor, until very finely chopped. With motor running, slowly stream in oil and process until smooth. Add more olive oil to achieve desired texture, if necessary. Season with salt and pepper.
- Step 2 Boil the water for the gnocchi and cook as package directs.
- Step 3 Season the veal chops generously with salt and pepper. Heat 2 TBSP butter over medium heat in a cast iron skillet, coating the bottom of the pan.
- Step 4 Add veal chops and cook for 8 minutes per side. For the last 2 minutes, put a lid over the pan to ensure the chops are cooked through. Remove to a plate and cover with tinfoil to keep warm.
- Step 5 Add the remaining tsp of butter and the olive oil to scrape up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Reduce heat to low and add the heavy cream, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon.
- Step 6 Add gnocchi and the chard, simmer until chard is cooked through, about 2 minutes.
- Step 7 Plate and top with your Romesco sauce.
After two big weekends of cooking and entertaining, my fridge is once again stocked full of goodies! It was so depressing when we had to dump everything in March after losing power for a week, but I’ve clearly made up for lost time. We have leftovers galore and I don’t want to waste a thing so a lot of my meal prep in the last few days has been focused on how I can use up some of these amazing ingredients in new and creative ways.
Today’s task – coming up with a creative accompaniment to veal chops (they were on sale at the store so I figured, why not?!) that won’t overshadow the star of the dish but add some much needed color to the plate. I’m not sure what inspired us to go the Tuscan/Italian route, but we agreed that gnocchi was a nice pairing and Marc had this ingenious idea to saute the gnocchi in the pan sauce (so decadent!). This time around, we called on Trader Joes for the gnocchi, but next time, I fully plan on making the gnocchi from scratch. Stay tuned for that update!
Okay so we have veal, we have gnocchi… but still, that left us with a pretty bland looking plate. What to do? Why not tear through your vegetable drawer and see what greens you can add! Believe it or not, swiss chard was our answer. At first we were both skeptical, but the bitterness of the chard was actually a great compliment to the richness of the gnocchi.
And since we had just made this amazing Romesco sauce as an accompaniment to our grilled vegetable platter (recipe coming soon!), I also decided to go out on a limb and add that to the dish as well. Marc wasn’t sold on that move right off the bat, but once I took a few bites and started “mmm-ing” up a storm, he reluctantly made me add it to his dish too.
I’m telling you, we really do like to wing it in our kitchen. And when we do, we often end up creating some of our biggest hits. Comment below and let us know what you think!
