July 12, 2019 Lunch – PPI Bun Cha Gio and a cheese and a herring sandwich Dinner – Roasted Pork Tapa with Steamed Asparagus and mushroom Couscous

July 12, 2019 Lunch – PPI Bun Cha Gio and a cheese and a herring sandwich   Dinner – Roasted Pork Tapa with Steamed Asparagus and mushroom Couscous

I ate granola, milk, yogurt, and green grapes for breakfast and then rode the short 4 mile circuit.

 I turned on the Tour de France and was lucky to see the finish at Chalon sur Saone, a town we visited.  I learned something amazing today.  Bob Roehl was taking about how much water professional riders drink.  He said staying well hydrated will prevent pain in one’s legs.

I then showered and worked until noon.  Then I ate my PPI yesterday’s lunch.  I must admit that day old Vietnamese food is not very appetizing.  It gets mushy, soggy, and musty and looses it freshness.

I was still hungry after finishing the PPI Bun Cha Gio so I toasted two slices of rye bread .  I buttered one slice and lay slices of Jarlsberg cheese on it.  I smeared sour cream on the other slice and opened the new bottle of Vita herring in wine sauce and lay slices of pickled herring and onions on the other slice and added a pickle.  I drank water with lunch.

Then I finished another project by 4:00 and watched Mad Money and finished another project by 5:30 and checked the market and was surprised that my portfolio increased by ¾%

I had thawed a cryovac plastic bag containing two pork tenders yesterday. Today I decided we would make our favorite pork dish, which is the Jose Andres Roasted Pork tapa with sautéed apple and onion slices.  I went to the garden and picked a handful of oregano and to the fridge in the garage to fetch the gala apples I bought on Wednesday. I then prepped the tapa dish by slicing 1 ½ apples and half of a large Vidalia onion in long about ½ inch wide vertical slices and rinsed the oregano.

I then addressed the pork issue.  I opened the plastic and washed and dried the two pork tenderloins inside.  I then removed a thin clear outer membrane and removed the silver skin encasing a portion of the tenderloin underneath.

I then snapped the ends off about twenty Asparagus stalks and loaded them into the steamer with the requisite amount of water.

I took down the large French sauté pan from its rack and washed it with warm water to remove all the accumulated dust  and put it on the stove and removed the container of PPI Couscous and mushrooms from the fridge and checked to see that we had a chilled bottle of Sagnol French rose’.

 I knew Suzette would be tired and I wanted to have everything ready for her to cook dinner when she walked in the door.

Suzette came home around 6:45 after finishing the on line test to acquire her alcoholic beverage server’s license.  We decided to cook only one of the pork tenders, so I cut it into six thick slices and wrapped the other tender in Saran and returned it to the fridge.

The cooking of the pork tapa contains four simple steps.  First Suzette heated butter and Spanish olive oil in the sauté pan and sautéed the apple and onion slices until they began to brown.

She then removed the apples and onion slices from the sauté pan and added a bit more butter and oil and sautéed the pork slices until they began to change color from red to gray.

 

Then she put the oregano sprigs on top of the pork and added the apples and onion slices and put the sauté pan with the pork into the oven to roast for 20 to 25 minutes.

While the pork and vegetables were roasting I made about one cup of chicken stock by mixing about 1 tsp. of dehydrated chicken stock with hot water and fetched the cognac.

The finishing step for the tapa was to remove the sauté pan from the oven, remove the pork slices and return the apple and onion slices to the pan and deglaze the pan with the chicken stock and cook the resulting liquid a bit until it coalesced into a light sauce.  Suzette then  returned the pork to the pan and added 1 to 2 T. of cognac to the pan and flambéed the ingredients.  Here is a video of the controlled burn.

 

                                               The pan ready to place in the oven

Deglazing the pan with chicken stock

 

The controlled burn 

 I heated the container of Couscous for 2.22 minutes in the microwave and Suzette steamed the asparagus for 8  minutes in the steamer and we were ready to plate dinner.

I spooned a small pile of warm Couscous into each pasta bowl and Suzette spooned two pieces of roasted pork into my bowl and one piece into her bowl and the spooned apples, Nixon’s and sauce over the pork and finally lay 7 or 8 stalks of steamed asparagus on top of the pile.

 

I opened and poured glasses of the Sagnol rose and we ate a delightful dinner.  The thing that impressed me was the complementariness of the tender pork and the light elegance of the rose.  The Couscous was the only part of the dish that had a firm texture, perhaps because the asparagus were slightly over cooked and also super tender.

I buy most of my rose’ at Trader Joe’s. St. Sagnol is my favorite Traditional Provençal rose at $7.99 that I drink with lighter dishes, such as a French seafood paella of this tender pork dish.  My favorite rose’ for the money is Emma Riechard, which is a German 100% Pinot Noir rose’ that Trader Joe’s sells for the amazing price of $4.99 that we drink with heavier dishes such as grilled shrimp or even lamb.

After dinner Suzette said she was thinking about making dessert and asked me what I wanted.  I suggested chocolate ice cream with the chocolate glaze she had made for the clementine cake, perhaps unconsciously channeling my youthful favoring of Big Boy’s tall parfaits of ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate sauce.  Suzette outdid herself.  She made a parfait with scoops of chocolate ice cream coated with a splash of chocolate glaze and garnished with whipped cream and topped with three maraschino cherries she made this week.  It was lovely to look at and eat.  Here is a
 picture.

We were tired of the news, so I found an old James Bond movie we had never seen, Live or Let Die, starring Roger Moore and Jane Seymour, two really attractive actors caught in an agglomeration of mayhem and chases and very little plot.  The usual James Bond genre.

When it ended at 10:00 we went to bed after a lovely dinner and a movie.

Bon Appetit