Adventures of an American Chef On The Run: Coca Cola Marinated Pork Chops and Cheesy Shredded Potato Bake

We may have taken our coke habit, that is for Coca Cola, a little too far this time.  Or we might not have. In reality, we've really cut back our coke drinking, but it is still in our lives.  We happened to have an open coke going when I was musing on new ways to improve a marinade.  It hit me, why not coke?  I googled it and found that lots of people have been doing this for awhile in all sorts of ways, so I determined it was time to add my own version to the mix.  As for the side, I am sick of mashed potatoes at this point, so I came up with this cheesy shredded potato bake that was a nice, rich break from plain mashed potatoes. 

My marinades for meat literally change each time I make them, almost always based off of ingredients I have available.  For my marinade I used: balsamic vinegar, soy sauce,  olive oil, local honey, garlic powder, black pepper, coarse salt and coke. 

I had two pork chops in a bag to start with.  I added coke, just a few tablespoons for the amount of meat. Probably half a teaspoon of garlic powder and the same of black pepper.  1 tablespoon of honey, a half teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.  I add a little soy sauce but Braggs soy alternative would be great here too.  I've been known to add coffee to marinades, but I'm not a coffee drinker so I don't really have it around currently.  In Oregon, there was always a pot of coffee going so I always used it in my marinades. I shook everything around until it was thoroughly mixed and coated and put it in the fridge for most of the day, at least 6 hours.

The potatoes are simple featuring: shredded potatoes, butter, milk, salt, pepper, garlic powder, asadero cheese (a mexican cheese similar to Oaxaca, cheap and easily available here, not so much in the US. Any cheese will do, honestly). 

I started by shredding 2-3 large potatoes (just for the two of us, remember, this can all be scaled up) and putting it in an oven safe dish.  I use a pan, my kitchen is currently as limited as my glassblowing studio. I just recently got a grater. I gave a generous shake of the salt, garlic and pepper over the potatoes and added probably a third of a cup of asadero cheese, chopped finely. 

I mixed that together.  In a small pan, I heated 1/3 of a cup of milk, 1.5 c water (although if you're using american potatoes, you'll probably need less), and probably a quarter of a cup of butter basically until the butter was melted.  Pour this over the potatoes, it's what they'll boil in while they cook in the oven.

I topped it with probably a quarter cup of cheese, for that to melt and then brown in the oven.  I'd probably judge my oven temperature at about 375 degrees fahrenheit, it's honestly a guessing game with the ovens here. It took about an hour for this to cook, in my oven.

At least 6 hours later, the meat looked like this.  It took on a much darker color form the marinade.  Very fragrant marinade, made for very flavorful meat. 

When you've got about 15 minutes left of baking, start cooking the meat.  I melted a bit of butter into the pan on medium and added the chops, one at a time leaving most of the marinade in the bag.

Cook until seared on both sides and remove from the heat. 

The potatoes are done when they look like this.  

It turned out delicious, the meat had an almost asian flavor from the sweet, sour and soy sauce aspect.  John asked me to make it into a stir fry or something, which will come in the near future. I think the coke helped to tenderize and flavor the meat, it'll probably be something I'll add when I have it, much like coffee. The potatoes were tasty and rich, a nice break from the mashed alternative.  They take a lot more time and energy in terms of fuel cost, but in the end the trouble is all worth it.  Recipes like this remind me that new things are created based off of variation of items available in the kitchen.  If you don't have it, you don't use it.  If you do have it, find a way to use it in all sorts of ways!