Sunday Success

Several weeks ago, I scored two pounds of pork tenderloin at HEB at a great price. Granted, I'd never prepared pork tenderloin before, and to the best of my knowledge, I'd never eaten it before either. As I think I've mentioned before, Gentle Reader, I was not raised in a pork-eating family (if you exclude the relatively large amounts of Potter's sausage we ate during the 18 or so years I lived under my parents' roof). Dad raised cows, not pigs--and boy, do I wish I had a picture of Dad and Devilboy to share with you right now.

When I bought the tenderloin, I did have plans for it and did have some hope that my previous largely positive experiences with preparing edible pork chops for the human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker would lead to another positive experience.

Of course, I had to wait for the weather to improve to have the opportunity to make the dish I'd picked out. No one wants to turn on the oven for an hour or so when the temperature is somewhere in the mid-90s with the humidity somewhere around the same percentage. That makes for a miserable dining experience no matter how tasty the meal is. Fortunately, Saturday's glorious rain led to an almost unseasonably chilly Sunday (since any more, May in Central Texas means heat, heat and more heat, with temperatures in the 70s something you can only long to dip down to overnight), which was the perfect weather for turning on Lumpy and let him get all hot and bothered for an hour.

Ginger and Thyme–brined Pork Loin1 C chopped fresh thyme sprigs
2 C water
1/2 C ginger preserves
3 T kosher salt
1 2-lb. boneless pork loin roast, trimmed
1 t freshly ground black pepper
1 T ginger preserves
1 t chopped fresh thyme

1. Combine the chopped thyme, water, salt and ginger preserves in a large bowl, then stir until the salt dissolves.
   
2. Pour the thyme mixture into a large zip-top plastic bag, add the pork to the bag, then seal.
   
3. Marinate the pork in the refrigerator for 24 hours, turning occasionally.
   
4. Preheat the oven to 425°.
   
5. Remove the pork from the bag, discarding the marinade.
   
6. Pat the pork dry with a paper towel, then rub it with pepper.
   
7. Place the pork on a roasting rack coated with cooking spray in a pan.
   
8. Bake at 425° for 25 minutes, then reduce heat to 325° (do not remove pork from oven) and bake 30 minutes.
   
9. While the pork is baking, combine 1 tablespoon of ginger preserves with 1 teaspoon of chopped thyme in a small bowl.
   
10. After the second round of baking is finished, brush the preserves mixture over the pork, then bake an additional 5 minutes or until a thermometer registers 155° (slightly pink).
    
11. Place the pork on a platter, then let it stand 15 minutes before cutting into 1/2" slices.

Yield: 8 servings (serving size: 3 oz. of pork)

Nutritional Info
Calories: 172
Fat: 6 g (s
Sat fat: 2.1 g
Protein: 24.8 g
Carbs: 3.2 g
Fiber: 0.1 g
Cholesterol: 62 mg
Sodium: 396 mg

The Faudie's Futzing
I made only three changes to the recipe. One was out of bewilderment, one was from poor planning and the third was out of thriftiness.

Did you see, Gentle Reader, that the recipe calls for four tablespoons of kosher salt for the brine. Yeah, tablespoons. That's a helluva lotta salt, and there was just no way I was going to follow that. Instead, I used four...roughly level servings from the little ceramic shallow scoop that came with the salt pig in which I keep my kosher salt. I think that little scoop is roughly an eighth of a teaspoon, so I didn't use that much salt.

Speaking of the brining, the second change concerned that process. I failed to remember that the meat needed to marinate for 24 hours, so it only got just shy of nine hours in the brine. Did that affect the flavor? I can't say. Perhaps the meat would have, as I'd feared, wound up with an almost overpowering thyme flavor if it had had more time swimming in the thymey water. Maybe not.

Not the prettiest sight, but the brined, thymey pork seemed ready for baking. Looks a little like mock duck, doesn't it?

The third change involved the thyme. Feel free to be impressed, Gentle Reader, that I have fresh thyme growing in a pot on the yoga patio. However, I don't have that much thyme. Let's face it--a cup of chopped thyme is a helluva lotta thyme. I didn't want to scalp my little plant before it got a good chance to grow.

So instead I whipped out the bag of dried chopped thyme from my spice cabinet and used that. That amounted to a little over a fourth of a cup, which I augmented with maybe a tablespoon of fresh stuff.

The glaze I did make with fresh thyme. However, the pork baked with a pretty good coat of thyme because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to wipe it all off when the recipe told me to pat the pork dry before baking. Yeah, the pork was dry, but the thyme clung to it.

The finished meat I served with Korean sweet potatoes that I know all three of us will eat (and because I had to sweet potatoes on the counter that needed to be used). The color of the side dish popped nicely when paired with the finished pork. The how-dare-this-be-labeled-ciabatta half-loaf came from Wally World's discounted day-old bakery cart and was heated in Lumpy's very handy warming drawer, and made a great delivery device for more ginger preserves, which I discovered to be incredibly tasty. I'll have to look for more recipes using that ingredient.