Pork Tenderloin and Tomato Relish

Last night we tested another recipe for Cook's Illustrated.  This time it was for pork tenderloin, tomato relish with couscous.  It was a healthy recipe to be prepared in a crock pot.  Right off the bat I felt this was not a good recipe.  Why use a crock pot for meat that will cook quickly in the oven or on a grill?  But we made it anyway.

The last bullet point worried me,  "be sure to spoon the tomato relish over the pork before seving or else the pork may taste a bit bland."  Was I about to waste two tenderloins on a bad recipe?

I decided to also make Southern Green Beans to go with it.  At least part of the meal would be fabulous.  Just stating the facts, folks.  My beans are killer!

Beans ready to snap

Bacon grease, bacon, salt ( No Salt at our house), minced onions, and love.

Ingredients for the meat dish.  Tenderloins are ready to be trimmed of fat and silver skin.

Meat rubbed with seasonings, fennel one of them yuck, and in broth to cook.

Set for two hours on low

Meat resting and couscous in crock pot.

Tomato Relish: wine vinegar, basil, cherry tomatoes, garlic, salt n pepper, olive oil

This was really really good.

This, not so good.  Color is awful, no browning, just gray.  And they were right, without the relish, very bland except for strong fennel taste.  People, fennel and pork does not work well.  Marty loves fennel, me not so much, and he didn't like the combination.  

ī

If you cover the meat up with relish and couscous, not a bad looking plate.  

We will salvage the left over pork and make sandwiches.  A little mustard or BBQ sauce will make it better.  I would make the relish over again.  It would make a nice tangy salad.  

Pork tenderloin in a crock pot, why?  It should have been browned first, and then maybe different seasonings.  Yes, you can throw stuff together and leave it cooking for a couple of hours.  But it wasn't good.  I could have cooked it in the oven better and faster. And I have. I love a crock pot, but they are not for all things.  

LOVELY MEAL

Last night we had a wonderful dinner: lightly breaded pork tenderloin cutlets with a caper gravy; baked apples; rice; zucchini with Parmesan, tomatoes, and pickled onions. It tasted wonderful and it looked beautiful. Where did we eat you ask? In our kitchen.

Marty cut and pounded out the cutlets. We had lots of them. We had unknowingly frozen two tenderloins together. The apples were from our tree. The tomatoes were from our garden and I had made the pickled onions. We planned to use all the leftover pork for sandwiches this week.

Marty cleaned up the kitchen. It was garbage night and I collected the trash and took up the first can. He took the green waste and recyclables up to the street. And then we watched TV.

This morning when I got out the OJ, I didn't see the pork in the frig. I then checked the freezer, not there. I went out to the garage to check the big freezer, no cooked pork cutlets. Where the hell did they go? Well, I found them, still sitting in the oven. We had put them in there to keep warm while he made the caper gravy. We left the extra cutlets in there while we ate. And then we both forgot them. They sat there overnight at room temperature. Growing bacteria.

I threw them out this morning when I found them. I took all that lovely meat up to the green waste can and dumped them. I threw out one and one half tenderloins. Not cheap to throw away that much meat. They looked so good, golden brown crust. They screamed eat me.

Those cutlets we ate last night were probably the most expensive ones we have ever cooked. But they were damn good.