The Alcoholian

Posted by johngl

Since I have been on the road most of the week a good, home-cooked meal was in order. It helped that the most glorious spousal unit had reminded me of some pork tenderloins we had stashed in the meat drawer.

This particular recipe stems from an old Steak de Burgo recipe used by Johnnie’s Vet’s Club in West Des Moines, Iowa. The funny part about this is that I still have the hand-written recipe taken from Johnnie himself. Back in those days, the recipe was a “big secret”.  Now, it’s out on the interwebs.

At it’s core, the recipe is equal parts cream and butter along with some garlic, oregano, and basil.  Throw in some fortified wine and you’ve got it.

But obviously, this is pork not steak. And I used Madeira, not Sauterne (don’t confuse this with the stuff from France).  I also use fresh herbs and garlic. And heavy cream instead of half-n-half. Otherwise the recipe is identical <cough>.

The rice was easy.  I had a pack of a brown and wild rice mix and hydrated it with some chicken/rabbit/duck stock leftover from the paella fest we had a few weeks ago. I brought the rice and stock to a boil, covered the pan, then let it simmer for 45 minutes.

The meat was easy, too.

The most glorious spousal unit, on an apparent high from learning to use chop sticks, decided she would prep the loins by removing the silver skin and seasoning them. It was easy because I didn’t have to do it. Did you see what I did there?

To prep the sauce, I took some heavy cream, heated it to the boiling point, and dropped in some tops of fresh basil and oregano along with a couple of smashed garlic cloves. The heated fat breaks down the volatile oils in the herbs and garlic and thereby infuses the cream with an herby-garlic goodness.

I just covered it and then set it aside to steep for a while.

When I put on the rice, I also went outdoors and fired up the grill.

Here’s a little trick I’ve been using for a while now…

Notice the plastic wrap over the cutting board. Using this technique, you can march the meat out to the grill, put the meat on the grill, then toss the plastic leaving the cutting board nice and clean.

A mere ten minutes after putting the meat on the grill…

I let the meat rest under a foil tent whilst I finished up the sauce.  This, too, was easy.  I pulled the herbs and garlic chunks out, heated the infused cream to boiling again, then mounted the sauce with some cold butter.

I scooped some rice onto the plate, cut the tenderloins on a bias, and plated it up.

Notice the nice medium doneness on the tenderloin.  Since these are so lean, it is easy to dry them out by overcooking.

Then, laying on some of the thickened sauce (mounting does the thickening as if by magic), dinner was served.

We enjoyed this easy dinner with an easy wine: a 2008 Castle Rock Pinot Noir.

It’s good to be home again.

The best things in life should be shared!

Tags: meat, pork, rice, wine

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 25th, 2010 at 8:36 pm and is filed under Meat, Recipes: Eats, Techniques, wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.