Our friends Barb and Justin buy a lot of their meats – mostly pork products – from this place just up the road from us in Pleasant Prairie; and Barb gave us a tenderloin and a couple of bacon-wrapped chops to try. I still haven’t gotten to those chops, but the cooler weather, and some leftover 4 Mustard Sauce, put me in mind to take the tenderloin out for a test drive.
Yum. Tender, moist, tasty.
Was it the pork, or the recipe?
INGREDIENTS
•1 Pork Tenderloin
•4 Mustard Sauce (or just use Dijon*)
•Fresh Rosemary
•2 Apples, cored and sliced
•Sweet Onion, sliced
•3 slices Bacon
•1 tsp Seasoned Salt
•1 tsp Tellicherry Pepper
•1 tsp Aleppo Pepper
Place the pork tenderloin in a zipper bag with some fresh rosemary leaves, then add enough 4 Mustard Sauce to coat the meat and rub it all over to coat the pork well. Seal the bag and pop into the fridge to marinate for a few hours.
*Note: if you choose to use Dijon instead of the 4 mustard sauce, you would also probably want to add some freshly diced onion and garlic, and some salt and pepper to the mix in the bag before you start rubbing everything together. I wouldn’t say no to mebbe adding a dab of white wine, too.
When ready to roast, bring the pork in its bag up to room temperature on the counter for about 45 minutes, then heat the oven to 375º.
Arrange the sliced sweet onion, 2 or 3 fresh rosemary sprigs, and the sliced apple in the bottom of a covered roasting pan.
Remove the pork from the marinade, rub with the salt, Tellicherry and Aleppo peppers. My tenderloin separated into two parts, so I layered it with the bacon – a slice on the bottom, one in the middle, and the third on the top.
Tie the tenderloin and bacon together with kitchen twine, then slather all sides with the remaining mustard sauce from the bag and place on top of the onion, apple and rosemary in the roasting pan.
Cover and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the cover and return to the oven for another 15 minutes.
Place the roast on a cutting board and allow to rest for 10 or 15 minutes (or until the rest of dinner comes together).
Slice and serve. You could, I suppose, remove the rosemary sprigs from the roasting pan aromatics and mebbe give the now-roasted apples and onion a good whizzz with an immersion blender to make a kind of gravy or sauce; but you don’t need it.
We had ours with champagne braised pearl onions and parsleyed potatoes.