Sunday, March 20, 2011

Garlic Roasted Pork Loin

I have never made a pork loin before so this was quite new for me. It was really difficult to narrow down a recipe because there were so many options! I settle on roasting it. This was good because I had some other things to do in the evening and it gave me time to do them. This recipe is probably better suited for a Saturday or Sunday afternoon if you like to eat early in the evening. We tend to eat late (especially on the weekend) so I made it on a Friday night. The recipe called for making a garlic paste with fresh cloves of garlic, dried rosemary, and olive oil. I used the food processor and put them together to make a lovely, very potent, garlic paste. This gets rubbed all over the pork.

The oven should be preheated to 350ºF. I put the marinated pork in a zip lock bag for about a half an hour. From there it went into my dutch oven. Side Note: this is the last of my wedding gifts that hadn't yet been used! With the pork I added some frozen veggies and a quarter cup of white cooking wine; I put the lid on and let it roast for an hour and 45 minutes. It came out looking and smelling amazing!

I scooped out the veggies to a separate bowl and put the pork in a foil tent to rest for about ten minutes. To the dutch oven I added two tablespoons of cornstarch and mixed it in with the oil and dripping left by the pork. Then I added one cup of beef broth and whisked it in to make a gravy. In the meantime, I had prepared some butter herb rice; I just cooked the rice in chicken broth and added butter, dried oregano, dried marjoram, and dried basil. The finished product was delicious. The pork was very tender and the rice was a nice side. I personally thought the veggies were the best part of the whole meal. The garlic and wine flavor soaked into them and they were really, really good.

If you're anything like me, you may have thought that a two pound pork loin was way too much food to feed two people. Well, you're right. However. The perhaps best thing about pork as leftovers are to what you can transform it. Saturday afternoon I had a pork sandwich, complete with gravy and all. Today (Sunday) I took all the leftover meat, shredded it and added barbecue sauce. Pulled pork. Wonderful week to live with the Browns :-)

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