Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Whisk Wednesdays—Mignons de Porc Arlonaise (Pork Tenderloins with Beer)

Mignons de Porc Arlonaise (Pork Tenderloins with Beer)This pork tenderloin with beer dish is a crowd pleaser. But not for the cook since it involved turning the potatoes! Now if I weren't going through this Le Cordon Bleu curriculum, I wouldn't bother turning the potatoes into the perfectly seven-sided cylindrical shapes that they're supposed to be. In fact, even when I try, they don't look turned. The potatoes are boiled in salted water until tender.

After browning the meat on all sides, it's roasted in the oven for about 15 minutes. While it's roasting, I made the sauce. Sugar and vinegar are melted and caramelized (without burning as I did the first time!), and then the beer is added carefully since it sputters. This is reduced by two-thirds before stirring in the liquid gold of veal stock, which is further reduced by half.

When all the vegetables are julienned, they're sautéed in butter. Season everything and let it all mellow together in the pan before serving.

Recipe

Serves 6

Mignons de Porc Arlonaise (Pork Tenderloins with Beer) mise en place
18 small waxy potatoes (red or white)
Salt
2 pork tenderloins, 1½ pounds each, trimmed of fat
Freshly ground pepper
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

For the Sauce:
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup wine vinegar
¾ cup dark beer
1¼ cups Brown Veal Stock

¼ pound carrots, cut into julienne
¼ pound celery, cut into julienne
¼ pound leeks (white part only), cut into julienne
¼ pound mushrooms, trimmed, rinsed, dried, and cut into julienne
¼ pound turnips, cut into julienne

You can find the recipe for Mignons de Porc Arlonaise (Pork Tenderloins with Beer) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Mignons de Porc Arlonaise (Pork Tenderloins with Beer)Tasting Notes
The sauce had a hint of sweetness from the sugar and sour from the vinegar that paired well with the pork. My favorite part of the dish was the vegetables. They were crisp, tender and buttery. But the best part of this meal was how easy it was to prepare…in one hour I had a gourmet dinner on the table.

Next Class (I'm on vacation next week.)
• Profiteroles au Chocolat (Profiteroles with Vanilla Ice Cream and Hot Chocolate Sauce) pages 304-305

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,453.13 + $18.00 (pork) + $11.18 (other ingredients) = $1,482.31
($4.86 per serving)

Butter used so far: 12 pounds, 28.5 tablespoons

. . . . . . . . . .
::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.
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  • 13 comments:

    MyLastBite said...

    Gorgeous Photos!

    katie said...

    beer and veal? Jesus. wowzers.

    I love using stock for sauce. I also LOVE duck stock.

    Sugar and sour complements pork blissfully... it all goes back to sweet and sour pork.

    I ate plum ketchup and honey on my fried chicken. delicious.

    Engineer Baker said...

    Ooo - sweet, sour, and buttery; that sounds wonderful! I've never tried turning potatoes, so you're a number of steps ahead of me there :)

    Anonymous said...

    yummy sounding!

    Anonymous said...

    Ooh...i love that guinness. I need to cook with it more often.

    Manggy said...

    Pork with a sweet-ish sauce is always a winner for me. And it sounds really simple too! ('cept for the taters...)

    Palidor said...

    That's making my mouth water.

    pam said...

    The flavors in that sauce sound wonderful!

    CaptainCrunch said...

    It is soo difficult to photograph meats and yours look absolutely delicious!! Nice work

    NKP said...

    Looks totally delicious, my husband would love this!
    Have a great vacation. :)

    Sippity Sup said...

    This is the sort of cooking I have missed during my wired jaw weeks. I can't wait ti get back in the kitchen with some PORK! GREG

    Kayte said...

    Loved the post, loved the photos...you are so creative! We loved this dish very much, and it was easy. I am thinking of making it for the family get together on Christmas Eve this year. I think it will be, as you say, a crowd pleaser. I have figured out how to manage all the steps and have a bit of the prep work done beforehand, so I am thinking this is IT! The vegetables were great, weren't they?! My turning is getting a little better...still not there, but I am pleased that at least it is coming along and I feel empowered! LOL.

    Taste Buddies said...

    Are they jardiniere vegies I see in the photo?! I'm hopeless at turning potatoes. They always end up too skinny.