Cider-Brined Pork & Gravy

Notes
This is apparently some sort of award-winning pork dish from Food52.com.  As such, it's probably most appropriate for special occasions - it requires some fancy liquor ingredients and a day's advance preparation.  But you can't very well promise it to guests without giving it a run though first, can you?

So what actually is/are calvados?  Some fancy kind of Spanish or Portuguese brandy?  Are there any non-fancy brandies?  In any case, it's not something I have lying around, or would invest $40 (as per recipe comments) in for one cooking experiment.  So I gave it a shot (heh) with some spiced rum instead.  Similarly, I replaced the various mustard/mustard elements with spoonfuls of good old Gulden's from my fridge.  I also used milk instead of cream, which in general seems not to not effect the texture too adversely in small portions.  Otherwise, the ingredients were surprisingly simple and mostly on hand.

Recipe

Pork
2 thick bone-in pork chops

Brine
2 cups apple cider
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp peppercorns
2 tsp mustard seeds
3 sprigs thyme

Sauce
1/4 cup calvados
1 shallot, minced
1 tbsp thyme, minced
1/3 cup apple cider
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp mustard

Day 1
Combine brine ingredients in a saucepan and simmer until dissolved.  Remove from heat and let cool.  Put your chops in a single layer in a pan, pour in the brine, cover, and let sit overnight.

Day 2
Rinse and dry the chops and season with a little salt & pepper.  Heat up 1-2 tbsp oil in a skillet and saute your pork until cooked through, 4-5 minutes a side.  Set aside your chops, pour out excess oil, and deglaze the pan with the calvados, scraping up bits.  Add 2 tbsp butter, then the shallots and thyme.  Saute a couple minutes, then add the cider and cream, and boil to thicken.  Then stir in the mustard and serve over the pork.

Outcome

This was dear-God good.  Yes, a lot of it came from the straightforward salt part of the brine.  It was hard to pick out the distinct components of the sauce, let alone the brine, but overall it was a very rich combination.  Shallots and thyme are very solid, flavorful ingredients.  And despite the whole cooking process spanning over 24 hours, no one part of it was too time-intensive.  The process left me time to cook dinner the night before, and could leave time for side dishes the day of, although I just served it (to myself) with some greens and carrots, extra sauce poured over the top, of course

One tip: I went pretty quickly from heating the brine to pouring it over the meat, which looked like it actually mildly started cooking the outside edges of the chops.  I'd probably let it cool first next time.