Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The other pork tenderloin

After tenderloin dinner #1, we had a spare tenderloin that I set to marinating. Mom came over and helped us devour this delicious little morsel:

Sweet Pork Medallions on pasta.

The meal itself was simple, but the meat is what carried all the complexity.

The marinade that I set it in overnight consisted of a lot of things. I think this is all of them (in general order of how much I put in since no measuring occured):

- cinnamon

- black pepper

- salt

- sugar

- thyme (didn't have fresh)

- fresh rosemary

- fresh garlic

- cloves

- nutmeg

- cayenne pepper

- paprika

- just enough water to make a thick sauce out of it

I let the meat sit in this overnight. Before I was ready to cook, I took the meat out, sliced it into 1/2 inch thick medallions and put them back in the bag to get the sauce all over.

 

Other Ingredients:

- 1 box of pasta

- red currant jelly (we had about 1/3 of a jar left over, so that is all I had to use)

- parmesan cheese

- olive oil

 

1. To put the meal together, just cook whatever pasta you have on hand (farafalle for us), adding garlic to the water to taste (lots for us).

2. Preheat a pan on high with a small splash of olive oil. Wait until the oil begins smoking.

3. Place the pork slices in the pan (reserving the marinating liquid for later), but don't overload it. The more that pan temperature drops the longer it will take to cook them, and we don't want tough dry bits of piggy! I would say do no more than 1/2 on a standard stovetop.

4. Allow to brown 4-5 minutes per side, and then set aside.

5. Deglaze the pan with ~1/2 cup of water, scraping up all the bits off the bottom

6. add what is left of the marinating liquid, and the magic red currant jelly and mix it all together. Taste and add seasonings as needed (mine needed a touch of sugar since we didn't have much jelly, and some black pepper)

 

7. Once it begins to reduce add medallions back to pan, spooning sauce over them until the sauce comes to a nice consistency and the pork is cooked to your desired doneness. Mine sat in here for about 8 minutes.

8. By now the pasta should be done, so drain it, and toss with fresh parmesan and some olive oil.

9. Plate it all up, making sure to spoon some extra saucy goodness over the medallions and pasta.

 

Everyone agreed that this was a darn good meal. :)

Unfortunately: No leftovers. :(

5 comments:

Melissa said...

That sounds really good! I like this one. :)

FreeOscar said...

You invited your mom but not me!

How could you? You could not invite me, an anonymous blogging buddy from the other side of the country, but the woman that stretched her vag to have you come out into the world got a nice pork tenderloin dinner.

I see how it is.

TomboCheck said...

Melissa - Yeah it is pretty darn good. The key is to marinate it at least overnight so that the meat soaks up that flavor. Otherwise all you really have is the sauce to pack the punch.

C.Rag - I know. Talk about assholishness! I tell you what - you have a standing invitation. If you make it all the way over to AZ to see an anonymous blogging buddy, taking into consideration that I live in the stix, then you will get pork tenderloin dinner. :)

Mike said...

My God that sounds good.

We have been doing a lot of tenderloins on the grill this summer, but this recipes makes me think I need to bring that piggy back inside.

Thanks Tombo!

TomboCheck said...

Mike - yeah, I am too lazy to go buy more propane for my grill, so all cooking has been occurring indoors. The only thing I haven't gotten the hang of cooking on the stove top is steak.... they never cook right.