Pork Tenderloin Stuffed with Herbs--if You Need to Eat Meat

My carnivore friends have been asking me to post some recipes for meat dishes. I must admit that there are at least two problems with this request.

First, there are not that many meat recipes on my menu. I do eat meat, but I tend to be more impressed with a good vegetable dish. I have probably eaten my share of meat dishes already in my youth and I am now more into experimenting with vegetables, especially those that were not part of my native cuisine.

Even more importantly, and this is something that even best food photographers are saying, it is very difficult to make cooked meat look good. For that reason, as someone who is very new to blogging and food photography, I was hesitant to confront this challenge. There are some good meat dishes in my recipe book, but I am afraid that, even though they taste great, they may look disappointing, as cooked meat almost always looks brown, brownish, or outright grey, which is not the most flattering way for a tasty dish to come out on a picture.

Below I share a recipe for pork with herb stuffing, and I hope that if you try to cook it, the taste will be more satisfying than these pictures may suggest. But I also promise to update this post if in the future I succeed in making a better picture of that dish.

Pork Tenderloin Stuffed with Herbs

Ingredients:
2 lb pork tenderloin; there are usually two pieces in one pack.

Stuffing:
1 bunch of parsley,
4 branches of fresh rosemary,
1 cup of breadcrumbs,
4 cloves garlic,
1 small beaten egg,
salt and pepper.

Marinade:
1 tbsp of coarsely ground mustard,
4 tbsp olive oil,
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. Wash meat, dry with a paper towel, and cut half way alongside making sure that you do not cut through the end; this is just to be able to spread the meat sideways to accommodate the stuffing.
2. Chop garlic, parsley, and the leaves plucked off the rosemary branches.
3. Add breadcrumbs, beaten egg, season with salt and pepper, and mix all the ingredients to make a smooth stuffing.
4. Divide the stuffing between two pieces of meat, spread slightly and close tenderloins with wooden picks.

5. In a small bowl mix mustard, 2 tbsp of olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, salt.
6. Rub this dressing all over the pieces of meat and let it marinate for about half an hour.
7. Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan on high temperature and fry on it the tenderloins on both sides until dark gold or almost brownish.
8. Lower the temperature and add a little bit of water (about 1/4 cup) to prevent the meat from burning, and cook for about 20-30 minutes under cover, depending on how well you like your meat done.

Pork made this way is very nice just with salad, for example a bean one--my next post, or served traditionally with potatoes or rice.

Tomato Flans from Tomato Coulis--a Summer Delight

Undeniably, more than anything else, this is a tomato season, and not only in Poland where for an equivalent of one dollar you can get two pounds of ripe tomatoes, but all over Europe, from Russia to Portugal. Also in DC, at farmers markets, or along the cross-country rounds on the way to the beach you can get now the locally grown tomatoes that are much tastier than the imported ones, which will be available in the supermarkets all year round.

If you buy such tasty tomatoes and have some leftovers after enjoying them with mozzarella or in any other tomato salad, I encourage you to make your own coulis, using this recipe. But if you did not find ones that taste like true summer tomatoes, just get a can of the fire-roasted tomatoes and the result will be acceptably good most of the time.

It is a rather light dish, as it is mainly made of tomatoes. It can be served for lunch or for dinner. It must be baked in water, or as the French say "au bain marie", but please don't be scared to try this because there is nothing simpler than that. And once you overcome the fear of baking in water, you will be ready to try all kind of delicious dishes requiring this technique, including crème brulée, everyone's favorite French dessert.

I am sure that, if you are a vegetable and light cuisine lover, you would appreciate this dish. I bake it usually in small ramekins, but it can also be made in a bigger, 10-inch oven-proof pie dish and cut into triangles. It will still taste and look great.

Tomato Flans

Ingredients:
3 eggs,
1 pound of tomatoes or one medium-sized can of fire-roasted tomatoes,
1 cup table cream,
1/2 medium sweet onion,
2 cloves of garlic,
1 brunch of celery sticks,
1/4 cup chopped chives,
1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley,
2 brunches of fresh thyme,
1 tbsp of butter,
1 tbsp olive oil,
salt, pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. For the coulis:
If you use fresh tomatoes, put tomatoes in a boiling water for about 2 minutes, then move them to the cold water in order to remove the peel, cut the peeled tomatoes into pieces.
If you use canned fire-roasted tomatoes, just open the can and cut the tomatoes.
2. Cut the celery, onion and garlic in small pieces and fry on the butter and oil mixture in a pot, until transparent.
3. Add to the pot tomatoes and simmer them for about 15-25 minutes--it will take a little bit longer if you use fresh tomatoes.
4. Cool the sauce a little bit and blend it into a smooth purée.
5. In a separate bowl, whip together whole eggs and cream until well blended.
6. Add to the egg mixture chopped chives, parsley and thyme leaves, and season with salt and pepper.
7. Combine tomato coulis and egg sauce.
8 Heat the oven to 375 F.
9. Butter 6-8 small ramekins or one oven-proof dish.
10. Divide the mixture over the ramekins to about 2/3 of the height,as the flan will rise slightly.
11. Place ramekins on a baking tin and pour around hot water up to half of their height.
12. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Serve warm, or at room temperature with French or Italian white bread and accompanied with a glass of red wine that always tastes good with tomato dishes.

Blue Cheese and Pear Snacks for Wine Lovers

A friend has been asking me for a long time to share this recipe but, to be honest, I have been very reluctant to do that. It is one of the dishes from my "all-time favorite" list and one that I often serve to my guests. Most of the people who try this snack love it and ask for the recipe, but sharing it with them makes it impossible to serve it next time I have them over, since they learn how to do that and often use that recipe themselves.

My close and a very candid friend, who took home and reproduced some of my culinary secrets asked once: "Please do not make that dish for us anymore. I have been cooking it so often that we are tired of it." That is the only downside of having a culinary blog and sharing it with people we know. But, the big upside of it has been that it makes me feel great to be able to influence other people's culinary habits.

So I quietly hope I can interest with this recipe my anonymous readers in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Indonesia, and Russia but not so much in Washington DC. Let's hope they are all on vacation.

This simple snack is excellent served before dinner, or just as a party snack in itself when we meet people for drinks and finger food. Since summer creates many opportunities for meeting friends and family in a very informal atmosphere, it is a perfect time to let others enjoy this dish, its taste and simplicity.

When you look at it, it seems that you can recognize all the ingredients, but in fact there is a hidden one, which people cannot distinguish and which makes these petite sandwiches taste mysterious. You should guess.

Blue Cheese and Pear Baguette Sandwiches

Ingredients:
1/2 baguette, a day-old baguette works the best,
1 soft pear,
1/2 pound of any hard blue cheese--it can be Bleu d'Auvergne or Stilton,
1/2 stick of butter,
1/2 cup of walnuts.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Cut the entire baguette in 1/4 inch thick slices and spread butter on them.
3. Peel off the pear, remove seeds and cut in quarters, then slice them across diagonally into thin slices.
4. Arrange the baguette on the baking tin buttered side up, and put a slice of pear on each piece.
5. Cover pear slices with slices of blue cheese and top with halves of walnuts.
6. Bake for that between 20-30 minutes, until cheese melts slightly, walnuts get roasted and the baguette turns gold.
7. Serve warm with wine.

This snack tastes wonderfully with red wine, but on a hot sunny evening it is goes particularly well with a glass of cold Vouvray or Sancerre.