pasta & pork cutlets

My friend asked me to make lunch since he is leaving tomorrow. Since it's a Sunday and I didn't really have anything planned, I said yes. He asked for my pasta in white sauce and I thought I'd do a smokey little twist to it. I also thought I'd do a new recipe. I've never done this one before but I've done something similar and I thought it was simple enough. Things went wrong though when I discovered that my pork was too thick and uneven and I couldn't find a chef's mallet. The idea was to make a lemon pork schnitzel but the butcher gave me pork that was just too thick. Anyway, it wasn't a total disaster as my friends liked it though they did find my sauce a bit too sweet. However, I still wasn't pleased with the result. I figure I could improve on this by chopping the almond flakes and using a deep fryer with thinner slices of pork.

Here are the recipes:

Smokey Blue Cream Sauce

• 1 slab - creamy blue cheese
• grated smoked gouda
• epicurean cheddar (this tastes extra sharp)
• smoked pepperoni
• pepperoni
• 2 small tubs of thickened cream
• 2 large brown mushrooms

Breaded pork cutlets (originally intended to be schnitzels)

• sliced pork
• almond flakes
• tabouli mix
• bread crumbs
• eggs
• salt lemon juice

Lemon sauce

• 3/4 cup sugar (this turned out to be too sweet - a half cup would do)
• 4 lemons juiced
• zest from 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• butter for finishing

And here are the photos:

almond flakes

tabouli mix - made of chopped parsley, mint, tomato, spring onion, dried lemon.

fresh lemons

fresh bread crumbs - this was still warm when i got it.

as the pork was too big, i had to slice it into smaller cuts.

the pork was too thick so i had to pound it with the back of my knife. i would've used a chef's mallet but every shop here is out of stock.

i marinated the pork in freshly-squeezed lemon juice & salt

beat the eggs

tabouli mixed with almond flakes and bread crumbs.

the ingredients are ready! let the breading begin!

breading the pork

they're ready to fry!

we didn't have a deep fryer so i pan-fried the pork.

pork is cooked! unfortunately, some pieces had their breading fall off.

mixing the lemon sauce.

boiling the noodles

browning the mushrooms

the pepperoni - 2 types

simmering the sauce

mixing in the cheeses - grate the cheese first to let it melt faster.

lunch is served!

Well, that was my Sunday. Tomorrow, I fly out so I'd be out for a few days. Enjoy!