February 01, 2009
Pork and Tomatillo Chili
I'm on a quest to use up a collection of stray bottles of leftover beer that have accumulated from various parties we've thrown. As a first experiment, this turned out really well.
The Ingredients
- ~ 2lbs. pork shoulder, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1 inch cubes.
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic, slivered
- 2 chipotle chilies, minced, plus 3-4 tsp. of the adobo sauce they're canned in
- 4 oz. can roasted diced green chilies
- 5 medium-sized tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and cut into bite-sized chunks
- 1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 12 oz. bottled of beer (I used a Gordon Biersch pilsner)
The Steps
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Season the pork with salt and pepper and brown it in a dutch oven or large ovenproof pot, working in batches if necessary. Remove from the pot and set aside. Pour off any excess fat.
- Add the onions, garlic, chilies, and tomatillos, and cook over medium-high heat until the onions start to get soft.
- Add the pork, the beans, and the beer and bring to a simmer.
- Cover the pot and stick it in the oven for about 3 hours.
When it's done, the beer will have cooked down to a thick, delicious broth, and the pork will be tender enough to eat with a spoon. Mmmm. Oddly, though, I think the tastiest part of this recipe might have been the beans - I think I'm going to try just cooking a big pot of pinto beans with chilies and beer.
Makes 4-6 servings.
Posted by spaceling at 08:23 PM
February 10, 2007
Broiled Pork Tenderloin with Mustard and Fennel
This is a good quick recipe for when you feel like something savory and meaty. It's also relatively healthy, since the pork tenderloin is a very lean cut.
The recipe is adapted from a recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything for pork tenderloin rubbed with a mixture of mustard and curry powder. The original recipe is also delicious. The technique of broiling in a preheated cast iron skillet is also Bittman's, from a recent New York Times article on broiling. (The Times has already banished the article to their archive, so I won't link.)
I served this with a salad made from thinly sliced raw fennel, thin slices of Meyer lemon (peel and all), and thick slices of peeled blood orange, dressed with more Meyer lemon juice, olive oil, and lots of freshly-ground black pepper.
The Ingredients
- 1 pork tenderloin, about 1.25 lbs, trimmed of excess fat and silverskin.
- 1-2 tbsp. Dijon mustard
- a palmful of whole fennel seeds
- a generous splash (maybe a tablespoon) of balsamic vinegar
- Salt and pepper
The Steps
- Put a medium to large sized oven-proof skillet on a rack about 3 inches from the broiler, and preheat the broiler. (If you don't have a suitable skillet, you can probably skip this step and just use a broiler pan as you normally would.)
- Bash the fennel seeds with a mortar and pestle a bit, or put them on a cutting board and roughly chop. (You're not trying to pulverize them. They're too tough for that. You just want to bruise them a bit so they give up their aromatic oils.)
- In a small bowl, combine mustard, fennel seeds, and vinegar.
- Pat the pork dry, if necessary, season it generously with salt and pepper, and then rub the mustard mixture all over it.
- Carefully remove your hot skillet from under the broiler, and put the tenderloin in it. (To fit a pork tenderloin in my 10 inch. cast iron skillet, I had to tuck a bit of the thin end of the tenderloin under itself.)
- Slide the skillet back under the broiler, and broil for about 8 minutes. Flip the tenderloin over, and broil until the pork is done. (See below.)
- Remove meat from the oven, and let it rest for about 10 minutes before carving into approx. half inch thick slices.
Serves 2-3.
Bittman recommends cooking pork to an internal temperature of 145 degrees. (The temperature will rise during resting to 155.) This leaves the pork slightly pink in the middle. I overshot somewhat, and cooked the pork to 160, and it was still perfectly tasty.