Friday, January 12, 2007

That giant hunk of bread is probably more than a recommended serving, first off.

This was the twice-cooked pork tenderloin from a recent Minimalist column, which could not have been easier, with some chard a la Jamie Oliver (his instructions for preparing greens- boil them and then dress them with oil and lemon- is the one thing that I really loved from his new book, which I was mostly unimpressed with). Seriously, the most time consuming part of the whole meal was boiling the water for the chard, which left plenty of time for all the mise en place. Once the chard was prepared (stems removed) and the sauce ingredients set up, the whole thing flew together.

Please note that the tenderloin and the chard were on separate cutting boards at all times, I try not to food poison anyone. However, when I was cutting the just browned but not cooked through tenderloin up (on a third cutting board) my husband looked at the raw slices of tenderloin and said, "What kind of crazy recipe is THAT?" apprehensively. I assured him I was not going to serve it to him like that.

And once you brown the tenderloin slices into little medallions, it is not only not raw but very, very good. Next time I will use chicken stock or cider in lieu of the water- I felt the sauce was a little lacking. But this method has made me reconsider the pork tenderloin, which I had fully written off as being never as flavorful as a pork chop. Perhaps a brined tenderloin, then twice cooked and with a richer sauce, would be enough to make me give up pork chops for good. (Not likely, but we'll see.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my god, I made this on Sunday night. Brine it. BRIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNE IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

You will not regret it.

Hannah said...

Will do. Was nuts to try to prepare pork tenderloin sans brining anyway.

Anonymous said...

It was awesome. Four of us ate two tenderloins and then after our gusts left, I cleaned the rest of the sauce of of the pan with my fingers.

(Also, the creamed chard was a hit.)