April 2, 2012 Lunch- Seafood Shack in Dallas Dinner – Sautéed Pork Chop with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Brussels sprouts

April 2, 2012 Lunch- Seafood Shack in Dallas    Dinner – Sautéed Pork Chop with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Brussels sprouts.

Billy took us to the Seafood Shack restaurant at 11625 Webb Chapel Road in Dallas
for lunch.  It was all Mexican folks behind the counter and a mix of Anglo and Mexican folks on our side of the counter.  We ordered fried oysters, Shrimp enchiladas, fish tacos and a coctel campechana (oysters, shrimp and.octopus in a parfait glass with chopped avocado and tomato juice and cocktail sauce and chopped cucumber). You add hot sauce to taste.  I ate spoonfuls of seafood and spicy liquid with crackers.

Everything tasted great.  The oysters were battered in corn meal and deep fried until the coating was crisp and the inside steaming hot and juicy.   They were served with two types of dressing.  A regular tartare sauce and a spicier chipolte tartare sauce.  Suzette liked her fish tacos with their obligatory cabbage and thousand island dressing.  We boarded the plane back to Albuquerque happy as clams.    

We made it home from Dallas at about 4:30 p.m. and I was surprised to see a whole bag of Brussels Sprouts when I opened the fridge Suzette had bought at Costco last week.  We unpacked our East Texas sweet potatoes and we thawed out two boneless sirloin pork chops.  So, we had the ingredients for a full dinner.

I cut the Brussels sprouts into halves while I watched Kentucky win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship and Suzette baked the sweet potatoes in the oven.  We then peeled the sweet potatoes and Suzette sautéed the potatoes with a handful of sliced sage leaves from the garden while the halved Brussels sprouts sprinkled with peeled shallots and garlic cloves all tossed in olive oil were roasting in the oven at 350° for about 45 minutes.  Then Suzette salted and peppered the pork chops and sautéed them in a skillet with olive oil until they were cooked and took on a little brown color.

I am a big fan of rosé wine with pork, so I fetched a bottle of Quinson Fils Côtes de Provence 2010 Rosé.  Let me say that the younger the rosé wine is, the more fruity and vibrant the rosé will be (Age does not help these wines that are bottled early and drunk early). The 2010 vintage was the last vintage released.  In May 2012 the 2011’s will be released.  This is true for both the U.S. and Europe.  Côte de Provence is one of those dependable rosé regions in France.  Its rosé wines tend to be light and clean without any tannic or musty after taste.  The Côtes de Provence 2010 was pleasant with the sautéed or roasted pork and vegetables, but lacked the character of rosés from other regions of France like Côtes de Massanay (Burgundy) or the great rosés of Bandol.

But if you want a light fruity wine, you can not beat a Côtes de Provence or Côtes de Ventoux.  I can not stop thinking of warm summer afternoons sipping them in the garden like lemonade.

Bon Appétit