I bought a boneless pork loin from Fresh Direct, the online grocery delivery service in NYC, last week. My cousins were coming upstate for dinner and I thought I would grill the pork with some asparagus. The piece of meat I bought was from the "bulk" section, which sounds pretty nasty. (Note to Fresh Direct: consider changing the name to something a little more appetizing, such as "Entertaining Portions" or "Food for a Crowd.") When it was delivered I almost fell over. It was 8.5 pounds, and I wish I had taken a picture of it before I prepped it, because it was as long as my kitchen counter!
I brought it upstate and slapped it on the counter and just stared at it. I figured I would cut it into two roasts. Grill one this weekend and freeze the other one. Then Mom suggested that I grill one and then cut the other half into some boneless chops and a smaller roast. Genius! Thanks for the great idea Mom. In fact, I ended up cutting eight chops, gave two to Mom to put in her freezer so she can use them for a midweek dinner, and I froze the other six for a weekend bbq in a few weeks. The roast went in the freezer too.
For inspiration for this weekend's dinner I turned to David Tanis's A Platter of Figs. Fred gave me this gorgeous book for Christmas and, believe it or not, I was yet to make a recipe from it. It was a coffee-table book in our apartment for most of the winter. I found myself flipping through the pages as I watched Season 1 of Mad Men on DVD (I can't believe I missed this show when it started. What was I watching instead?), and fantasized about the dinners I would serve. Well, fast forward six months and it's time to start cooking that fantasy dinner.
Tanis comes from Chez Panisse and his approach to food is so simple and pure (check out this great review of the book on apartmenttherapy.com). The pork was drizzled with olive oil, smothered in crushed garlic and fresh rosemary, and dusted with salt and pepper. He uses fennel seeds and the fronds from fresh fennel as a bed to roast the pork on, but I didn't see any fennel at the farmers market, so I skipped that part (next time, I promise). It was still delicious. Just as I was about to turn the grill on, the skies opened up and the rain came down so hard and for so long. Trapped inside, I simply put the roast in a pan with about five potatoes cut into cubes and popped it in the oven for 45 minutes. So delicious.
I didn't find the fennel or asparagus at the farmers market (more about this in another post) but I did get a bag of braising greens, which I made with some garlic, and white wine. I was afraid that the beet greens, dandelion, and kale might be a little bitter, so I added a tiny splash of apple juice to sweeten it up. I probably could have skipped that since the wine was enough. I sliced the pork and served it on a bed of the braised greens. Roasted potatoes on the side.
We had a great visit with the cousins and ended up not getting up from the table for about three hours. Dinner turned into dessert (homemade rice pudding from Mom), after which, they headed home and I went to take a short nap on the couch. It was a really good weekend.
But for those of you paying attention to my math skills, you may notice that I have only come up with four dinners from that original pork loin. Well tonight I am using the leftovers from dinner with the cousins to make sliced pork with bok choy and soba noodles. If it comes out as good as I'm hoping (I'm making this recipe up!), then I'll post it tomorrow.
Here's the recipe as I made it.
(Adapted from David Tanis's A Platter of Figs)
5 lb boneless pork loin
5 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 tbs pepper
salt
olive oil
2 rosemary sprigs, roughly chopped plus additional sprigs for roasting
Flip the roast upside down and insert the garlic slices into the slits of the meat. (I helped this along by creating a few shallow slits with a sharp knife.) Sprinkle with pepper and season generously with salt. Add a good glug of olive oil and the rosemary. Massage the seasonings into the meat.
Line a roasting pan with some more rosemary sprigs and rest the meat on top. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or up to overnight. Bring back to room temperature before cooking.
Preheat oven to 425°. Roast the pork for 45 minutes (1 hour if you're using a bone-in cut), or until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 130°.
Let the meat rest between 15 and 30 minutes before slicing.
Enjoy!
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