Some meals
are better than others because of availability of time, energy and ingredients. This was one of them. The meals last week, due to the energy being put
into writing my brief, were not.
I had bought
a package of two pork tenders on Tuesday at Costco ($3.29/lb.). We also had a lot of avocados and apples that
were getting really ripe.
I first
thought about grilling the tender and making a port and dark cherry sauce, but
we lacked the required fresh shallots (I will need to go to Ta Lin to replenish
them), so I decided on an old favorite recipe for pork tender instead Roasted
Pork Tenderloin with Apples (p.236) in José Andrés’ Tapas a Taste of Spain
in America, which is the equivalent of Mastering the Art of French Cooking
but shorter and for tapas.
Suzette
wanted to see if we had any greens in the garden we could use as a garnish for
the plate with the avocados, so we went to the garden and rolled back the
plastic covering the beds we planted several weeks ago and found lots of lovely
growth. We picked enough Mbuna, beet and
arugula leaves to garnish three small plates.
Roasted Pork
Tenderloin with Apples
1 pork
Tenderloin (1/2 lb.)
1 Tbsp.
unsalted butter
2 Tbsp.
Spanish olive oil
1 golden
delicious apple, peeled, cored and sliced into 8 or more slices
1 white
onion peeled and thinly sliced
5 sprigs of
fresh oregano
¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black
pepper
2 Tbsp.
Spanish brandy (We used Calvados, tonight)
½ cup of
chicken stock
Each
tenderloin weighed 1 lb. so we decided to double the recipe. I sliced 2 onions
and 2 apples and put them into a French sauté pan.
Then following the recipe I preheated the oven
to 300˚F and then heated the butter and olive oil in the large ovenproof sauté
pan with the apples and onions over a medium flame on the top of the stove.
After
fifteen minutes they took on color and we added 5 or six sprigs of fresh
oregano, a couple of sage leaves, and one chopped garlic stalk from our garden.
Suzette seasoned
the pork tenderloins with the salt and no pepper because of my sensitivity to
black pepper and placed the meat on top of the apple and onion slices in the
pan and scooped the cooking liquid from the pan on top of the meat and placed
the pan in the 300˚ oven and set the timer for 30 minutes.
After 30
minutes the meat reached the prescribed internal temperature of 140˚F, so we
removed it from the oven and covered it with aluminum foil and we ate our
avocado appetizers.
Fried
Avocados
While I was sautéing
the onions and apples, Suzette made fried avocados. She sliced and peeled one avocado per person,
put panko and salt and pepper in a bag and crushed the panko with a rolling pin
and put each avocado half into the bag and coated each avocado half with crushed
seasoned panko.
I
heated a skillet filled to about ¾ inch with canola oil and then cut 1 large mango into cubes. Suzette made a sauce of crema
con sal ($1.79/lb. at Pro’s Ranch market) flavored with Cholulu hot sauce and powdered
ancho chili and then fried the avocados in
the oil and drained them on paper towels.
She then placed a bed of leaves of the greens on each plate and placed
two avocados on leaves and filled the hole in the middle with mango cubes. Then Suzette made a pastry bag and nozzle by putting
the crema sauce into a plastic bag and cutting a hole in one end of the bag to
make a nozzle and then decorated each avocado with a thin ribbon of sauce. The avocados were soft and melted in one's mouth. The combination of citrusy mango and slightly zippy sauce gave the rather soft and neutral flavor of the avocado a lovely edginess. Beautiful.
Wine
I wanted to
try a new wine, so I opened a bottle of 2010 Giesta Dão (given to us as a gift
last year by an unidentified attendee at our Christmas Eve buffet) and poured
it and we enjoyed it immensely with the avocados. While we were eating our dinner I looked at the
bottle and discovered that the wine was from Portugal. After dinner I read the back label which stated:
GIESTA
2010
Dão
Denominacão
de origem controlada
Touriga-Nacional
(32%), -Tinta–Roriz (45%) – Jaen (23%)
My family
has been making wine for four generations.
Thanks to their passion and to the sense of responsibility they
engendered, I inherited a love of Dão wines and became a winemaker. I selected
our very best traditional grape varieties for this wine: Touriga-Nacional from
our Estate chosen for its ripe floral character and Tinta–Roriz and Jaen for
their fruit and spice. This wine has a wonderful
natural freshness, with floral highlights and a succulent ripe fruit palate. Elegant
tannins make this wine very easy to drink and help to provide a long, fruity
finish to the wine.
Here are the
WSJ ratings from individuals who have tried the 2010 Giesta Dão:
Ratings-Only Reviews for Giesta Dão
2010
Based on the average of (6) ratings-only reviews
4.2
out of 5
Would recommend? Yes 4 out of 6
Enjoyment:
4.3 out of 5
Value:
4.3 out of 5
Buy Again:
4 out of 5
The wine was
deeply purple and fruity with velvety delicate tannins like a good pinot noir.
After eating
our lovely appetizer we returned to the kitchen and steamed the asparagus until
they were tender, about 7 or 8 minutes, then turned off the heat and let them
sit on the stove.
I fetched
the bottle of calvados and Suzette placed the pan on two burners with medium
heat, added the brandy and another ¾ Tbsp. of butter and cooked the onions and
apple mixture until it reduced by half, about 2 to 3 minutes, then added ½ cup of chicken
stock and reduced the sauce until it thickened slightly, about 4 to 5
minutes. I sliced the tenderloin. It was
still too red for Suzette and she suggested placing slices of it into the sauce
on the stove to cook and flavor the edges of the pork, which we did and then we
plated it with the asparagus.
Voila. What a meal! Bites of tender pork with pieces of flavorful
onions and apples with sips of the light fruity wine were fabulous.
Bon Appétit
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