Mighty Meaty
Pork Steaks with Spicy Mustard and Honey Sauce
Two tips for best the most delightful pork steaks with spicy mustard and honey sauce: 1) Try and get Japanese mustard and 2) butter — lots of butter.
Japanese mustard? Yep. I know that in the grocery, there are mustards labeled as “spicy” but the heat of Japanese mustard gives spiciness an altogether different meaning. The heat is reminiscent of wasabi. Unbelievably good!
And the butter part? Well, you pan-fry the pork steaks in butter. Then, more butter is added to the drippings in the pan, the mixture of spicy mustard and honey is poured in, and that’s the sauce that you drizzle over the pork steaks.
For best experience, be generous with the sauce so that it drips down into the rice over which you have arranged your pork steaks.
Just wow, right? Right. But… it’s two weeks before Christmas and everyone’s thinking about party food. Can the recipe for this pork steaks with spicy mustard and honey sauce be tweaked to serve a bunch of people?
Oh, sure! Just read all the way down to the notes after the recipe.
Pork Steaks with Spicy Mustard and Honey Sauce
Print PinIngredients
- 3 pork steaks (see notes after the recipe)
- salt
- pepper
- ¼ cup butter plus 2 tablespoons
- ¼ cup spicy mustard Japanese mustard is recommended
- ¼ cup honey
Instructions
- Pat the pork steaks dry with paper towels. Sprinkle both sides generously with salt and pepper.
- Melt the ¼ cup butter in a heavy skillet (cast iron is ideal) large enough to contain all three pork steaks in a single layer.
- Sear both sides of the pork steaks in the hot butter.
- Pour in half a cup of water, lower the heat, cover the skillet and let the pork steaks cook until the liquid has gone dry (see notes after the recipe). There is no need to flip the pork steaks over.
- Lift the pork steaks and transfer to a plate. Keep hot.
- Over low heat, melt the remaining butter in the pan.
- Whisk together the spicy mustard and honey.
- When the butter is bubbly, pour in the mustard-honey mixture and make sure to scrape the bottom of the pan.
- Scoop rice into three bowls and top each with a pork steak.
- Spoon enough spicy mustard and honey sauce over the pork steaks so that the sauce drips into the rice.
- Optionally, garnish with mint leaves before serving.
Notes
About the pork steaks
Please don’t substitute pork chops for the pork steaks. Although pork chops have a layer of fat on one side, that simply isn’t enough to keep the meat moist. Pork steaks, on the other hand, have a marbling of fat that is ideal for this recipe.Cooking pork steaks
If your pork steaks are of good quality (it really depends on which part of the animal the steaks were cut as well as the age of the animal they came from), they should cook in about 12 minutes. Otherwise, you may need to extend the cooking time and add more water occasionally until the meat is tender.Cooking for a bunch of people
If you’re thinking of making this dish for a group of, say, 12 to 18 people, it will be too much work if you have to use a skillet from start to finish. Worse, the pork steaks won’t cook at the same time and the first ones to cook will already be cold by the time the last batch comes out of the skillet. Well, unless you have a skillet that’s about two feet in diameter and a burner appropriate for such a huge skillet. If you do, go ahead and cook all the pork steaks in a skillet. Otherwise, here’s the trick. After searing all the pork steaks in butter, move them to a baking tray (you may need two). Cover the trays tightly with foil and pop into the oven which must have been preheated to 375F. It’s okay to slide the trays on the top and bottom oven racks. Bake the pork steaks for 15 to 20 minutes. Again, the exact length of cooking time depends on the quality of the meat. Take the trays out of the oven and transfer the pork steaks to a serving platter. Combine the drippings in the trays with whatever drippings there are in the skillet where you seared the pork steaks. Add butter, the spicy mustard and honey, cook until bubbly then pour over the pork steaks.
