Autumn Grilled Plums & Scrumptious Baked Pork Chops, Yum!

I get excited in late summer when all the stone fruit begin to ripen and show up in markets — peaches, pears, cherries, apricots — and let’s not forget about plums. I love the aroma and flavor of all these ripe stone fruit. Although plums are often overlooked, they make the some of best dishes when cooked into a pastry, dessert, ice cream or chutney. The sweet, aromatic flavor seems to intensify. This year, I discovered a delightful “new” fruit on the market called a “Plumcot.” It is a hybrid of a plum and an apricot. I purchased some of these — by mistake — and am glad I did. They were great when I grilled them in an eclectic marinade of brown sugar, ginger, lime and vinegar and paired them with baked pork chops and other veggies for a supper meal.

Oh, those plums…..

Why don’t I like plums? Hum, perhaps it is the texture or the juiceness which seems to drip down my hand. Another drawback of plums is that it is hard to remove the pit (seed). A plum just isn’t a fruit which is easy to pick up and eat for snack like a peach. Whatever the reason, I’ve never been a fan of plums. Why should I like plums? The flavor is intense and wonderful. And this fruit is healthy — the dark, purple color means that it contains plenty of pigments and antioxidants which provide protection against chronic diseases.

Road Trip Memories

Over the years, I have gradually learned to enjoy plums. Now I look forward to finding this fruit in late summer and adding it to many dishes. And I can remember when my facination with plums began. My memory is a driving trip through western New York in August after taking my daughter off to college in Rochester. We saw a sign for a farmer’s market stand along the interstate and got off. The farmer had a lovely stand with all his produce for sale including these wonderful plums. How could I resist. I filled up the car with lots of fruit and vegetables, turned up the air conditioning in the car and we made the very long two-day drive back to Louisiana with a load of food.

That adventurous journey lead to experiments with using plums in dishes. And, now I have a collection of favorite plum recipes. One of my all-time best pies is “Deep Dish Plum Pie.” Just as delicious are “Plum Ice Cream” and “Plum Bread” recipes. And, surprisingly, plums make a great pairing with poultry and meat. Today I decided to pair grilled plums with an easy recipe for baked pork chops.

What is “Plumcot”?

In recent years, all kinds of new-fangled fruit varieties have emerged on the market such as Plumcots, Plucots, Apriums, Color-cot, Nectaplum, Peacotum and Pluerries. They all hybrids of two or more varietes of stone fruit including plums, apricots, cherries, peaches and nectarines.

A Plumcot is a hybrid combination of a plum and an apricot — 50% plum and 50% apricot. The flavor is tart, but it still aromatic. The skin is smooth, the texture is firmer — more like an apricot. And, to complicate things further, there are lots of variations of “Plumcots.” Some look like an apricot, these look like a plum. They are called “Jubilee” Plumcots. The growing season for these fruit is very short; purchase these fruit while they are available. 

Plumcots are a hybrid fruit — they are not a genetically engineered fruit. Rather the fruit develops through meticulous cross-pollination between the flowers on two different types of fruit trees. After the desired fruit is developed, the botanist grafts a tender branch onto a hardy plum stock tree and then we have a “Plumcot” tree.

Family Tree Farms – Mega-farmers

These Plumcots were grown by Family Tree Farms. This is a three generation family-owned orchard grower and farmer in the Central Valley of California. The orignal family member was Herschel Jackson who came to California in the 1930s. The Jackson family runs a huge operation — their orchard consists of 5,000 acres in California. The family grows blueberries, stone fruit and satsumas. Of course, one of their objectives is growing fruit with excellent flavor. They operate a research station to develop the best possible fruit. Their website claims to use modern farming practices — such as water conservation, pest control — to maximize land usage. They also have farms in Mexico, Peru and South Africa. It is hard for me to fanthom how farming has changed over the years — family farms are now giant family farms. Sadly, gone is my grandfather’s small family Iowa farm. But, I believe that these mega-farms are probably a necessary sign of the times.

Grilled Plums, Veggies & Baked Pork Chops

My inspiration for my grilled plums is the recipe, “Grilled Peach Chutney,” in magazine which I purchased in a pharmacy store. Those strategically placed racks get me in every time. The peach chutney recipe looked delicious and I still plan to make it some day. In the meantime, I made this recipe several times to get it right. Each time the recipe morphed quite a bit from the original one. I ended up with grilled plums and veggies rather than a chutney.

The “Grilled Peach Chutney” recipe contained so much brown sugar in the marinade that my plums simply caramelized. Although delicious, I wasn’t looking for a burnt sugar glaze. My final recipe is a better balance between the sugar and oil, so that I could actually grill the vegetables and plums. Rather than chopping the grilled ingredients up for a chutney, I just left the vegetables in chunks. In my final recipe trial, the plums were so ripe that they sort of fell apart. But they grilled! Lesson learned — use firm plums.

Grilled Plum and Veggie Marinade Recipe

For my recipe, the plums and vegetables are marinated (or “doused”) in a delightful and flavorful mix of brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, lime juice, ginger, salt and oil. The ginger and lime juice hightlghted the flavors of the fruit. I liked the mild rice vinegar, too.

Do you marinate fruit as the magazine recipe instructs? Better to say that you coat the ingredients with the marinade.

The original recipe used fruit, a red bell pepper and a Vidalia onion in the chutney. I substituted in a green bell pepper — although a red pepper would work — plums and a sweet white onion.

Chop the vegetables into large chunks. Cut the plums into halves, removing the pits.

Grill Time

When it’s time to grill, the magazine instructs you to heat a charcoal or wood grill to 350 degrees. This recipe was made in a restaurant kitchen, so I am guessing that they had an institutional grill handy. For this small recipe, I used my very small tabletop electric Chefman Grill & Panini Press. After pre-heating the grill for half an hour, I lightly oiled the grates, placed on the ingredients and let them grill. I turned them from time to time, coating with leftover marinade.

Baked Pork Chops

The second part of my recipe is baked pork chops. I have an easy and simple way to cook center-cut, bone-in pork chops. It works every time — the pork chops are tender and flavorful.

My method is to coat the pork chops in a little melted butter, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle on seasoned bread crumbs. This is a “one dish” recipe, I pour the melted butter into the casserole dish and turned the pork chops to coat. No need to get out multiple cooking pots and pans for this recipe.

Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Although the breading topping does not crisp using this method — we’re serving the pork chops with grilled fruit and vegetables — I’m not complaining. (For very large, thick pork chops, I baked them for an hour.)

To serve, I placed the grilled plums and veggies a platter and passed everything around the table.

To finish the meal, I served “Autumn Grilled Plums & Veggies” and “Scrumpous Baked Pork Chops” with either rice or potatoes. (We’re in southern Louisiana where rice goes with everything!)

I love the combination of plums and pork chop. I would not have imagined that these sweet, caramelized grilled fruit would complement the meat dish so well. The sweet, lime marinade helped bring out the flavor of the fruit and vegetables.

Enjoy plums while they are at their peak! I’m glad that I purchased “Plumcots” by mistake. They are quite a tasty variety of plum. And, thanks to that very long road trip to New York and back to Louisiana one August for my discovery of the joy of plums.

(The recipe for “Scrumptious Baked Pork Chops” follows.)