This recipe calls for small amounts of two wines – Marsala and one of a Piedmontese Barbera or a Valpolicella or any young red from Central Italy, e.g. a non-riserva Chianti. I didn’t have any of these wines around the house – only have Marsala for cooking purposes & not much of a fan of most Italian wines in general, but I do have a fondness for Valpolicella. So off for a visit to the LCBO – the Liquour Control Board of Ontario – a unique distribution/regulatory government-controlled entity found only in Ontario. The LCBO was started in the 1930’s & reflected the conservative nature of much of Ontario society, at least until fairly recently. It is also a great money-maker for the provincial government and provides for a wide selection of alcoholic beverages, if not low prices. Occasionally, there have been suggestions to privatize the agency, but I suspect that it won’t happen. The LCBO is the world’s largest purchaser of alcoholic products.
I bought a 1.5 litre bottle of Valpolicella because it was on sale.
The rest of the ingredients are close at hand. Nothing very unusual – pork chops, garlic, tomato paste, flour, olive oil, fennel seeds, garlic, parsley, salt & pepper – simple ingredients as is typical of most of Marcella’s recipes.

Following the directions of this recipe was quite easy. The first few steps only take a few minutes … and then, whoa, an hour. “Braising” is just a word that means its going to take a while. The only issue I encountered was the relative size of the larger of my two sauté pans vis-a-vis the size of the pork chops. It was a tight fit.

The whole dish takes about an hour and a half from start to finish. Well worth it. The humble pork chop never tasted better – see below.

Oops, forgot to add the parsley before I took the pic. Well, you know what Ogden Nash said about parsley ….
What I liked about this recipe:
Hey, any recipe with two wines can’t be all bad, right? Actually, I liked almost everything about this recipe.
What I didn’t I like about this recipe:
One tablespoon of tomato paste? What do I do with the rest of the can? Oh, I know, I can freeze it until the next time.
Would I make it again?
Yes – it was very good. My problem with a lot of pork chop recipes is that … well, they taste like pork chops. This one is a couple of steps above.