In Which Fruit And Pork Make Beautiful Music Together

Let me begin this entry by apologizing to my parents for the fortune they spent on parochial school. But, quite frankly, if we're not meant to eat pigs, they ought not to be such a readily available source of lean and delicious protein.

I love pork tenderloins. The problem with them, however, is twofold. For one, they are incredibly lean and therefore prone to becoming dried out lumps of jerky. Secondly, many people believe that if pork isn't a solid gray throughout, it will cause you to develop intestinal worms and liver flukes and experience unpleasant side effects such as vomiting and death. But with a little know-how and attention, this cut can be tender, flavorful, and juicy. Properly cooked, pork tenderloin should be rosy in the center rather than looking like putty.

I like light, simple food in the summer and had purchased a pork tenderloin for grilling. I think pork pairs wonderfully with fruits (roast pork and applesauce being a classic combination) and considered dressing the loin with fresh apples and allspice. But that felt rather heavy for the weather. On Monday AlmondBoy and I had gone to the farm stand and selected some beautiful summer produce, including some enormous peaches and a variety of squashes. I thought the peaches would do nicely, and then I recalled that I had some sliced mangoes (thanks, Trader Joe!) in the freezer as well. Peaches and mangoes together are scrumptious, ergo I decided that all three would be a tasty trio.

To begin, trim the fat and remove the silver skin from the meat. Then soak it in a saltwater brine for roughly 12 hours.

After the meat had finished soaking, I patted it dry with paper towels. I took out a large piece of tin foil and spritzed it with olive oil spray. I placed the loin on the tin foil, then topped it with the mango slices. I arranged the sliced peaches (it took two, sliced into eighths) all around the perimeter like a fort of deliciousness, topped it with some fresh herbs (tarragon, sage, and rosemary from the garden) and sprinkled on some good sea salt.

Finally, I just folded it up into a packet, taking care to seal the seams. Make sure you crimp it pretty tightly because you don't want all of the juices to come pouring out when you flip your packet. I placed the packet on a hot grill and cooked each side for approximately 8 minutes, until the internal temperature reached 135 degrees.

After that point, I placed the pork directly on the grill to brown the outside and let the internal temperature come to between 145-150 degrees. I left the fruits in the foil over the heat.

Once the internal temperature was high enough, I moved the pork to a large platter and smothered it with the fruits, juices, and herbs.

Then I tented it loosely with foil and let the whole dish rest for about 5 minutes to let the interior finish cooking. Because the grill gets the meat so hot, it continues cooking after being taken off the grill. Therefore it's essential to have it come off a touch early if you want the middle to stay moist and juicy and delicately pink.. Which you really, really do.

As I had hoped, the flavors were wonderful together. I served the dish with a steamed squash medley (pattypan, crookneck, and zucchini) which I flavored with oregano and sea salt. We also had corn muffins with homemade strawberry jam.

In Which There Is Blueberry Onion Marmalade

I love this recipe. It's very fresh and summery, and blueberries and lemons are a perfect flavor combination. It's a little sexy, this marmalade, with the luscious melting texture of the onions and the unusual - yet regal - hue from the blueberries. The chicken itself was juicy, flavorful, and perfectly cooked. I served it atop a spinach/romaine salad topped with jicama, pigeon peas, cucumbers, and crumbled Pepper Jack. The marmalade is a beautiful violet color, and it contrasted marvelously with the green salad leaves, the caramelized exterior of the chicken, and the creamy white cheese.

Unfortunately, my USB port is acting up and my dad has my memory card adapter thingy so I can't show you the pictures I took.

Blueberry Onion Marmalade Over Grilled Lemon Chicken

Recipe courtesy of Jerry Edwards of Chef's Expressions Catering

4 whole chicken breasts
2 lemons
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
White pepper
1 pound chopped sweet onions
1/2 pint fresh blueberries
1 cup chicken stock
1/8 pound butter
Sea salt
White pepper

Zest one lemon and squeeze the juice from both. Cover chicken with the olive oil and lemon juice. Marinate for two to three hours. Toss together sea salt and zest. Remove chicken from marinade and sprinkle with lemon salt and white pepper. Grill on each side until browned, but still rare in center. Bake for 10-12 minutes in a 350-degree oven until they reach 150 degrees in center. Let stand for 5-8 minutes before slicing. (The chicken should reach 160 degrees while resting.) Slice in 1/4-inch slices.

In melted butter, simmer the onions slowly for about an hour. Continuously add chicken stock during the cooking process to keep moist. When onions are soft, add blueberries and cook slowly for 20 minutes. When the onions are almost a jam, season to taste with salt and pepper and serve over sliced lemon grilled chicken.

***

I cut the butter and olive oil in half, and the dish still had a wonderful, silky texture with a rich flavor. As you can see, that change eliminated a significant amount of fat and calories from the dish:

Original

Calories 500.0
Total Fat 22.4 g
Dietary Fiber 3.1 g
Protein 56.4 g

Modified

Calories 414.9
Total Fat 12.7 g
Dietary Fiber 3.1 g
Protein 56.4 g

I recommend unsalted sweet cream butter. I used thawed frozen berries (Trader Joe's sells some very nice organic wild blueberries at a good price) in place of fresh, and for the stock I went with Trader Joe's Free Range Organic.

In Which There Is Gelato And Also Langoustines

Partly because I tend to buy expensive food and partly because I hate wasting things and partly because I sometimes like to pretend I'm on a Food Network hidden camera show called Suburban Freezers, I save odds and ends of things in my freezer. When the tomatoes start to look elderly or the blackberries begin to take on a withered appearance, they go into the freezer for later use in sauces or jams. Fallen cakes await conversion to trifle, stale bread to French toast. I have containers of au jus, bagged poultry carcasses, and the occasional avocado.

But, for all my frugality, I loathe clutter. This extends to the freezer, and so on Saturday morning I went prowling through the big freezer in the basement in search of inspiration. I found it in the form of half a bag of frozen strawberries, three frozen mangoes, and a frozen banana. I recalled some buttermilk in the fridge, and decided that gelato was the order of the day.

A note on mangoes: they can sometimes be very starchy and fibrous, so be careful. I prefer champagne mangoes for this reason. And, because mangoes are annoying to cut up, be aware that Trader Joe's carries packages of halved ones in their freezer section. One package is about the equivalent of what I used here.

In the warmer months I always keep 1:1 simple syrup on hand. I make it in big batches, then store it in glass bottles in the fridge. It's nice to have for ice cream making and for mixed drinks, but it's also nice for making cold drinks like lemonade or sweetened iced tea because the sugar is already dissolved.




















To make this gelato, I thawed the fruit in the microwave, but not entirely. The colder your starting mixture, the better resluts you'll get with your ice cream maker. Here's how much fruit I had, plus the banana. I'd estimate it at around 5 cups fresh, and around 3 thawed.














I then took 2 cups of simple syrup (in retrospect I think I might reduce the simple syrup to 1 1/2 cups) and combined it with the fruit in my food processor. I left some little chunks intact, but you can puree it as much as you like. I then added 2 cups of low-fat buttermilk (plain European or Greek style yogurt would do nicely as well) and the juice of 5 seedless lemons. Once everything was combined into a beautiful peachy color with ruby highlights, into the ice cream maker it went. After about 30 minutes in the ice cream maker, I scraped it into a plastic container and put it in the freezer to harden.














Because it was sultry out, I wanted to have a light dinner on the deck to complement this dessert. I pulled out a bag of langoustine tails. Langoustines are like teeny lobsters and the meat is very tender and sweet. AlmondBoy loves lobster but langoustines are cheaper, easier to work with in the kitchen, and much less fuss because you can buy bags of them at Trader Joe's, where someone has thoughtfully killed and packaged them for your convenience. I thawed the langoustines, then tossed them in a mixture of olive oil, garlic, sea salt, dried coriander, basil, and Greek oregano. I left them in the mixture for about thirty minutes while I got everything else ready.














I boiled half a box of whole wheat penne in salted water and let that cook while I cut a fresh pineapple into 8 long pieces. I put the pineapple on the grill and returned to the pasta. After draining the pasta, I added the langoustines and their juices, half a package of English peas, the juice of 2 lemons, and returned the pot to low heat. I wasn't quite happy with the results, so I added a quarter cup of Greek yogurt and found that it bound everything together perfectly.

Returning to the grill, I checked on the pineapple. It had been grilling for about 5 minutes and so I flipped it to let the other side finish. Grilled fruit is one of my favorite warm weather side dishes, and pineapple is one of the best. The charred spots have a deep, caramelly sweetness that goes wonderfully with the tart acidity of the fruit. As soon as the pineapple was charred to my liking, we ate. I had a lovely piece of Parmigiano Reggiano stravecchio, which we grated over the pasta. It was so good that I kept breaking off chunks to eat alone. The cheese was wonderful and nutty with delicious crunchy toffee-like crystals studded throughout. I luuuurve cheese.















For dessert, I served mugs of the gelato topped with Trader Joe's plain European style yogurt, drizzled with mesquite honey, and ornamented with a mint leaf plucked from the plant on the deck. It was heavenly. The sour, astringent creaminess of the yogurt was a perfect complement to the light, fruity gelato, and the sticky-sweet honey hardened from the cold into delicious chewy strands.