Maple Sugar Glazed Pork With Baked Apples and Thyme

Reviewed for RSC #10. Chef, this is worth more than 2 stars but they don't allow 1/2 stars! When choosing this recipe, I went by the description: "a delicious and sticky combination" ... I loved the ease of preparation. My first doubt surfaced when whisking the marinade: the chef descibes it as "a thickish paste". I'd been extra careful to measure perfectly, but mine was just a normal thin marinade. In the end I also cut my apples into smaller sections (I used Granny Smiths). I could not quite follow the instruction of putting it "side by side" with the chops. Maybe I was just dense. This recipe was followed to the nth degree. But the marinade never became sticky, and refused to reduce. I served it with rice and two plain veggies. The dish tasted pleasant and I cannot fault the taste of the (thin) sauce. I wonder if the chef did not make an understandable error? A 1/2 pint of cider is 1 cup. Did you maybe mean 1/2 cup? Also, we were disappointed that the flavour of the maple syrup and even the mustard did not come through. I kept thinking that the creator of this recipes -- which could be great with a few alterations -- might have meant to use less cider. My photographs are not good: they were taken under electric lights, camera hand-held and not steady! Thank you, chef -- you could alter this recipe a little and have a winner. As it stands, we found it okay, quite nice, but judged it a little more severely than normally because it's a contest, and we felt the promise made in the intro was not fulfilled. It could still be tweaked after the contest and turned into the winner it could have been! Thanks, and good luck!

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This is a different, tasty way to prepare pork chops. The sweet and savory flavors of this dish compliment one another well. The pork chops turned out juicy and flavorful with a sweet, sticky glaze. We enjoyed eating each bite of pork with a bit of roasted apple as well. We did think the glaze was a bit too sweet for our preference, but overall the dish was beautiful and delicious. Thank you for sharing! (Made for Aus/NZ Recipe Swap #30)

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I decided to try something totally different for my style of cooking. I usually bread and fry my pork chops. The only change that I made was to reduce the apple cider to 1/4 cup. My sauce was nice and sticky. I also ensured my chops and apples were thoroughly coated with the sauce. The only issue I had was my apple skins baked really dark. But they also slipped right off and the apple underneath was delicious. I served these with mashed sweet potatoes, which was a wonderful accompaniment to the dish. Thanks for posting, FT...you've expanded my pallate a little. Sue

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This recipe has nice flavors. I had to do step 2 twice. The first time I followed step 2 exactly and the result yielded a very liquid sauce. Since there is no way to make a "thickish paste" to "spread over the tops of the chops" using 1/2 a pint of cider I threw that out and started over. The second attempt I added a couple tablespoons of the cider. After it marinated for 40 minutes, I poured the rest of the 1/2 pint into the pan. The recipe, as I said above, had very nice flavors and everyone liked it but, it was not very attractive as the cider did not allow for the glaze to brown and there was nothing sticky about the sauce (which was the result we really wanted). I was not disappointed, but either I did something very wrong, or the recipe is written wrong or the description is not accurate. I would be happy to try this one again. Good Luck Chef!

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Unfortunately I can only give 3 stars to this the main course. The directions talked about a thickish paste, but following the directions made a liquid, not a paste. The taste was fine and the apples were a nice addition, but there was no glaze on these chops as described. I suspect the amount of cider was incorrect. The amount of onions was also overwhelming. I would cut back on those if I made this again.

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Nice flavor and great smell while cooking in the oven. They never glazed however- probably because too much cider. I also used half of an onion and it was plenty.

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Like the other reviewers I also had a thin marinade, and my sauce also never reduced. I thought that this was a tasty dish. The pork chops were plump and juicy, with a nice mild flavor, but you couldn't really taste all of the flavors. The sauce was sweet & tart and the apples were tender. I will try this dish again, but will not add as much liquid next time. Good Luck in the contest.

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This sounded so wonderful; however, didn't come out as expected. After mixing the syrup, sugar, mustard and cider together it was very liquid and not a "thickish paste". I did cut the apples in 8ths and after 45 minutes am glad that I did as they were crisp tender. The chops were not glazed as I had hoped. It was pretty tasty, just not what I had expected from the description. Good luck in *RSC 10*.

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