After playing around with several ideas for a stuffed center-cut, boned loin of pork, a came up with the idea of using reconstituted dried fruit in the stuffing, but I wasn't sure what fruit to use exactly. While at the grocery store, I picked up some dried apricots, mango and pineapple. After I got home and starting fooling around with the recipe, I realized that the pineapple was just too sweet, so I substituted that with some dried cranberries that I had in the pantry.
This was largely a recipe where I had a general notion of where I wanted to go with the end result, but I really made it up as I went along. For me, this is the fun and the joy of creative cooking. It's like an artist that buys canvass and paint at the store, and has a general sense of what he wants to portray, but the creative process really takes place as his brushstrokes cover the canvass.
You will need some butcher's twine for this recipe, as you have to tie the roast together before putting it in the oven.
I served this dish with a grilled asparagus salad with a raspberry vinaigrette, and some rosemary mustard roasted potatoes. I also fell back on my old friend, Williams-Sonoma Madeira Wine Finishing Sauce to create a delicious gravy for this recipe, adding sherry wine and apple cider vinegar. You may or may not be able to buy this sauce from the Williams-Sonoma website, but I have included a recipe below to make your own Madeira wine sauce.
Ingredients
For the stuffing
1 medium red onion, finely diced
3 stalks celery, finely diced
2 tbsp minced garlic
3/4 cup dried apricots, chopped
3/4 cup dried mango, chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries, roughly chopped
1 cup chicken stock (like, Swanson's or Kitchen Basics)
2-1/4 cups seasoned bread crumbs (like, Old London or Progresso)
1 tbsp rubbed sage
1 tbsp marjoram
1 tbsp ground thyme
1/2 cup spiced rum or brandy
3 tbsp olive oil
1-1/2 sticks butter
Ingredients
For the pork loin
3-4 lb boned center-cut pork loin
3 large shallots, sliced
non-stick cooking spray (like, Pam)
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp horseradish
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp Cajun seasoning (like, McCormick)
1 tbsp black pepper
2 tbsp Hungarian paprika
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tbsp marjoram
1/2 tbsp thyme
3 tbsp dried parsley
Ingredients
For the apple cider Madeira sauce
1-1/2 cups Madeira wine sauce (like, Williams-Sonoma or use the recipe below)
1/2 cup Tawney port or sweet sherry wine
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
Ingredients
For the rosemary mustard potatoes
4-5 medium to large size Russet potatoes
1 cup olive oil
2 tbsp crushed rosemary
1 tbsp powdered mustard (like, Coleman's)
1 tbsp onion powder
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tbsp black pepper
1/2 tbsp Hungarian paprika
Ingredients
For the grilled asparagus salad
1 bunch of fresh asparagus, snapped at the "sweet spot" (**see below)
1 tbsp olive oil for cooking
2-3 handfuls of fresh lettuces
3 green onions, sliced, including the green stems
1 handful cherry or grape tomatoes
2 tbsp Dijon or Dijon-horseradish mustard
3 tbsp raspberry vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp lime juice
1 packet Splenda
S&P to taste
3/4 cup olive oil
The Recipes
First, prepare the stuffing:
In a small saucepan, heat up the chicken stock until boiling. Remove from the heat and place your chopped dried fruit into the stock. Cover and let stand for at least 15 minutes.
In a saute skillet, heat the 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1/2 stick of butter until melted, and then saute the red onion, celery and garlic over medium low heat. You want to sweat the vegetables, but don't brown them.
After the fruit has softened and absorbed some of the liquid, and after the onion, celery and garlic has become limp and translucent, add the fruit, liquid and all to the saute pan with the veggies. Turn up the heat to medium high, and cook until some of the liquid has reduced, about five minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and add the spiced rum or brandy. Return the pan to the heat, and allow the alcohol to evaporate by just letting it bubble away for a couple more minutes.
Remove everything from the stove and place all of this in a mixing bowl. Melt the remaining stick of butter in the microwave, and then add it to the sauteed vegetables and fruit, along with the sage, marjoram, thyme and bread crumbs. Mix well so that the bread crumbs are all wet and absorbing the butter and liquid. Allow to sit for a minute while you prepare the roast. You want the stuffing to be the consistency where it will clump together to form a ball, so use more bread crumbs or more melted butter or additional chicken stock if needed.
Next, prepare and stuff the pork loin:
Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. In a mixing bowl, combine the apple cider vinegar, mustard, and horseradish, and then blend in the brown sugar, Cajun seasonings, black pepper, paprika, marjoram, thyme and parsley. Mix well to combine into a paste. Add more or less vinegar and more or less brown sugar to ensure this has the consistency of a thick icing that does not run.
Your pork loin should have a nice fat-cap on one side. This side will need to be facing up when you put it in the oven. Lay your pork loin on a flat surface, fat side up, and using a sharp butcher or boning knife, cut the roast in half length-wise, slicing into the meat until you are almost cutting through it, but not quite. You want to keep the two halves joined together along one side, so that you can open the loin like a book.
Pack your stuffing onto the side of the opened loin that will be the bottom of the roast once you tie the two halves back together. The stuffing should be moist enough that it adheres to itself, making it easy to keep the stuffing from falling out of the loin. Don't overcrowd it. If you have to leave a little behind, don't worry about it. It makes a great munchie while you're finishing the dish.
When all the stuffing has been packed onto one side of the loin, "close" the top side of the roast so the fat-cap is back on top. If you haven't over-stuffed it, you'll be able to almost close the top side of the loin onto the bottom side, with the stuffing nicely tucked in-between. Tie the roast together with 4-5 loops of butcher's twine.
Coat the bottom of a shallow roasting pan with non-stick cooking spray and lay out the sliced shallots in a configuration to accommodate the shape of the roast. Place the roast on top of the shallots, and then score the fat cap with a sharp knife in a diamond pattern, being careful to only cut through the fat and not into the meat.
Coat the top and sides of the roast in the seasoning paste, and then insert a meat thermometer into the roast at an angle, so it is in the middle of the top half of the meat, and not into the cavity where the stuffing is. I prefer a thermometer that has a probe tethered to a control unit that sits outside the oven. It looks something like this.
Roast the pork loin for 15-20 minutes in the 450 degree oven until the top becomes brown and crusty, then turn the oven down to 250 degrees and cook another 1-1/2 hours or so, until the thermometer registers 150 degrees. If the roast is cooking too fast, you can turn the heat down to 225 degrees.
Then, prepare the potatoes:
You're going to need two ovens to pull this off. If you don't have two ovens, then you can make this dish ahead of time and microwave to serve. Or, you can forgo this recipe altogether, and serve the dish with country fried potatoes or mashed potatoes. But potatoes it must be. This is a hearty dish with a lushious savory gravy and rice or some other starch side dish just won't do it justice.
You want to time your potatoes to come out of the oven roughly the same time as your roast, so with about 45 minutes of cooking time left on your roast is when you want your potatoes to go into the second oven. Pre-heat it to 425 degrees.
Wash, but don't peel the Russet potatoes. Dry them well, and then cut them into quarters lengthwise, and then slice them across the width of the potato into four to six slices, so you have relatively evenly sized quarter pieces.
Waiting until just before popping them into the oven, put the potatoes in a zip lock bag with the olive oil, black pepper, the powdered spices and crushed rosemary. You do not want to do this ahead of time because the seasonings will leach water out of the potatoes and you'll wind up with a soggy product. Shake the bag to evenly coat the potatoes, and then lay out the potatoes in a roasting pan in a single layer. Roast 45 minutes.
Next, prepare the salad:
While the pork roast and potatoes are in the oven, it's time to grill the asparagus. I use a stove-top grilling pan for this task. A grilling pan resembles a skillet with ridges, allowing you to make char marks on food cooked on top of the stove. Turn a stove-top burner on high and put the olive oil in the pan. When it starts to smoke, turn down the heat to medium high and put your asparagus spears in a single layer in the pan. Turn frequently until the asparagus is charred, about 7-8 minutes. Remove from the heat, allow to cool and then cut into 1-inch pieces.
In a mixing bowl, combine the raspberry vinegar, mustard, lemon and lime juices and whisk until well blended. Then pour the olive oil in a little at a time while whisking. The oil and the mustard will combine to create an emulsion. Season with the Splenda, salt and pepper.
In a separate mixing bowl, combine the chopped asparagus, lettuces, green onion and cherry or grape tomatoes. Chill the bowl with the veggies and the bowl with the dressing until just before serving.
Finally, make the sauce and finish the presentation:
When the pork loin thermometer registers 150 degrees remove the roasting pan from the oven. Leave the thermometer probe in the roast for the time being. Lay the roast on a cutting board and tent it in foil. Allow the roast to rest for 10-15 minutes while you make the sauce.
Put the roasting pan over the stove on medium high heat and de-glaze the pan with the sherry or port wine and the apple cider vinegar. Using an inverted spatula, scrape up all of the crusty bits as well as the well-cooked shallots. Bring to a simmer and allow the sauce to reduce by half. Finish the sauce by adding the Madeira sauce and stir until blended and heated through.
Toss the salad with 3-4 tablespoons of the dressing.
Carve the pork loin into 3/4-inch slices. Spoon the sauce over the meat and potatoes with the asparagus salad on the side.
And if you're going to make your own Madeira wine sauce:
Ingredients
1-1/2 cups beef stock (like, Swanson's or Kitchen Basics)
1 tbsp flour
1 cup Madeira wine
2 tbsp veal demi-glace (like Williams-Sonoma)
2 small shallots, finely diced
4 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper
The Recipe
Melt half the butter in a sauce pan and saute the shallots until caramelized. Stir in the flour and allow it to thoroughly combine with the shallots and butter, and cook a bit until slightly browned. Whisk in the Madeira wine and de-glaze the pan, scraping up the crusty brown bits. Add the stock and the demi-glace, and allow the sauce to reduce by half. Strain out everything so the sauce is smooth, then whisk in the remaining butter. The sauce is now ready to use.
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**Asparagus snapped at the "sweet spot": in order to separate the woody stem of the asparagus from the tender vegetable, hold the spear at each end in two hands and bend it. It will break at the sweet spot, which is where the inedible part breaks away from the part you will cook. Discard the woody stem.
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