I’ve had my eye on this Roman Rice Cake for a while. I was going to do it as a healthy lunchbox item, but in the end it’s ended up being the veg and rice for this Crispy Pan-Fried Pork Chop recipe.

We start with the rice cake, or more specifically 500g of spinach that gets rinsed in cold water and wilted down. How much spinach?

Actually not that much after it cooks down.

And there’s the risotto rice cooking next to it. This mix gets fried up with onion & garlic, before eggs and parmesan are added to bind it together. Meanwhile a pie dish gets coated in (sourdough) breadcrumbs.

The rice mix goes into this and it gets baked at 180C fan for 25 minutes.

While that’s cooking the pork chop coatings gets made: cornflour, buttermilk/dijon/garlic, and a food processored mix of cornflour, seasoning and crunch nut cornflakes.

Then the messy job of coating things.

After the buttermilk has had a chance to tenderise the pork, it’s frying time.

The coating basically stuck to the pork…

The rice cake and chops get tented in foil while a pan sauce of cinder, honey & mustard gets made before plating up.

Mmmm this is delicious! The pork coating is lovely and crispy, the rice cake is full of flavour and a lovely texture contrast, and the sharp sauce provides the liquid required to cut through the dry crispy nature of them both. Will do again!