March 25, 2014 Roasted Pork with Fruits and Roasted Brussels sprouts with onion, cranberries and pecans

March 25, 2014 Roasted Pork with Fruits and Roasted Brussels sprouts with onion, cranberries and pecans

You would think that after so many years of cooking that I would never have failures, but I had a near miss tonight and I realize it is the same mistake I made at Christmas with baking hams.  I failed to cover the meat with aluminum foil or a cover sufficient to prevent the meat from drying out while baking.  I will never make that mistake again.

Yesterday I took out a three or four pound boneless sirloin pork roast (Costo $2.29/lb.) and thawed it out.  

Finally today it was thawed.  I called Suzette and she said to braise it and then to roast it in a 325˚ oven.  So I butterflied the meat and preheated the oven at around 1:30 and started braising the meat in a skillet at pretty high heat on the stove top.   After about fifteen minutes of braising, I put the meat onto an oil sprayed roasting rack filled with water to a depth of about ¼“ and roasted it uncovered for about 45 minutes while I soaked dried apricots, prunes and cherries in port.  When I looked at it, the meat appeared to be done, so I called Suzette and she said to cover the meat with aluminum foil. 

So I filled the cavity with the marinated fruits and brushed the meat with the port and turned the heat down to 300˚ and let it cook until Suzette arrived at 5:45.  The meat had dried out quite a bit but had not completely lost its juices, so I would call this dish a near failure.

At 6:00 I went to the garden and picked sage and garlic greens and chopped about 1/3 cup of each and put them in a ceramic baking dish.  I then cleaned and cut the ends off of about 1½ lb. of Brussels Sprouts and cut them in halves and put them into the baking dish with the herbs.  I then cut ½ of a yellow onion in half and diced it into small pieces and put it and a handful of dried cranberries and a handful of pecan halves (thanks to my client Sammie Singh, Jr., who is a pecan farmer south of Las Cruces) into the baking dish with a dash of salt and tossed all of the ingredients in the dish with enough olive oil to coat each item with a bit of oil.

 

When Suzette arrived from Santa Rosa at around 6:15, we inspected the pork, which fell apart upon touch, so I had made pulled pork.

I finished making the vegetable casserole around 6:30 and we put it into the oven and raised the temperature to 350˚ and baked the vegetables for 45 minutes until they were tender, turning them once at twenty minutes to re-coat all the ingredients with olive oil.

I bought wine today on my way home from my 8:30 a.m. appointment, including twelve bottles of Leese-Fitch 2010 Sauvignon Blanc at Jubilation ($90.00 with the 15% case discount because I had discovered at Trader Joe’s that the South African Zafara Sauvignon Blanc had gone out of the store system in 2010.  This is consistent with what Jubilation’s owner told me; that no one was buying South African wines anymore and that South African wines were a craze that died about five years ago.  He recalled that the dry Chenin Blanc was the only really popular wine from South Africa, but he did not have any for sale in the store and neither did Trader Joe’s.  So I settled on Leese-Fitch on sale for $7.99/bottle.

While I was shopping for prunes at Trader Joe’s, I did buy two new bottles of sparkling wine.  One was a Spanish Albero Cava for $5.99 and the other an interesting looking bottle of very red sparkling wine labelled Vickery Park Pinot Noir Brut Rosé for $5.99 made using the Méthode Traditionnelle,which is the term used in France for sparkling wine made in the traditional champagne method elsewhere than within the Appellation Controlee Champagne.  On the back label it stated that it was “Produced in France”.  When I got home I chilled the champagnes in the fridge.  With about fifteen minutes of cooking time remaining on the vegetables (about 7:20 p.m.), Suzette said she wanted some wine so I opened the Vickery Park and poured us small glasses of it.  It tasted fine, a little sweet for a brut but very fruity and lots of bubbles and that distinctly pinot noir flavor that we like.  I went to the Vickery Park website and found out lots of information about the history of the Company and its wines.  Here is the link: http://www.vickerywines.co.uk/about-us.html.

According to Vickery Park, the wine is 100% Pinot Noir, so that explains the dark red color and the grapes are grown all over France.  We liked it a lot and at $5.99, I don’t know of any sparkling wine I can recommend that is better for the money, especially if you like pinot noir Rosé.  It is sold exclusively by Trader Joe’s in the U.S.   Suzette recommended buying a case of it for summer evening meals in the garden.  Amen, brother, Amen.  Perhaps two cases and we can have some parties.

So when we were ready to eat dinner, we plated up slices of pork and spoonfuls of vegetables and drank them with lots of rosé sparkling wine.

I confirmed another theory from this meal.  That including fruit in the meal satisfies one’s craving for a sweet dessert.  We went to bed happy and satisfied and Suzette mentioned using the pork to make pulled pork in BBQ sauce, so that dish is coming soon to this blog, I will bet.

I have been taking vitamins for the last four days and am beginning to feel much more energized.  I rode to Montano and back at 5:00 in a pretty strong head wind and did not suffer any tiredness or weakness.  Perhaps also because I had gone to Azuma for Chirashi Donburi ($13.95) for lunch at 11:00 a.m. after my wine buying excursion.  The sashimi seafood was wonderfully fresh today.  The yellowtail melted in my mouth, but the tuna (maguro) was a little stringy.

I saw a segment in 60 Minutes on Sunday about the blue fin tuna trade in Tokyo’s main fish market.  What was amazing was that most of the big tuna from around the world are brought in frozen and they demand high prices.  I tried to ask the sushi cutters today about that and the best I could get as an answer, due to my lack of Japanese, and their poor English, was that that they liked fresh tuna better.  But I still ask myself, “What is fresh?”   When I mentioned that the tuna seemed stringy they said, “We just received it this morning;” meaning, I think, that it had not had time to coalesce its flavor and texture.   The tuna did seem to be a little pulpy and not as smooth and uniform in its texture as it usually is.

         

Bon Appétit