Sunday, December 9, 2007

Pork Tenderloin

I have served pork tenderloin with roasted potatoes for years at the holiday party, having gotten the idea from a friend of my brother. I've never been completely happy with it, in part because it wasn't "mexican" enough. They'd always been a little dry, too. A classic problem with pork.

For the menu issue, I got the inspiration to used a pork taco mix I had from Penzey's as a rub and then use the Lime Cilantro recipe from Thanksgiving on regular, rather than sweet, potatoes. I also applied what I had learned about pork from the Sauces 101 class, as part of the ancillary learning to counter the dryness.

Turns out I was out of the Pork-specific seasoning, so I used one of my jars of Penzey's regular taco seasoning and let it sit for an hour. About an hour or two before the start, I seared all sides of each loin (2 packages = 4 loins) in a pan with corn oil (for the hint of flavor) and then set them to roast in a pan @ 350F with my remote thermometer in. I took them out when it hit 148F (targetting between 145 and 150) and let them rest.

I put them back in the oven, covered with foil at 200F, until ready to serve at 8:00. I then had my friend Ross cut them into medallions about 1/3" thick. They were perfect. Just the right temperature, just the barest hint of pink and still very juicy.

Time did get the better of me on the potatoes, but the pork itself just flew out of the pan. I've never run out before.

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