...when my slow season meant I put in, say, 15 hours a week of labor and mostly puttered like a proper househusband.
I must also confess my shame that I have pilfered--in whole or in part, but usually the former--much of my bloggage from the lovely and gracious Poppy. At any rate, I will try to shed the straightjacket of Blog Slackage by raving about dinnah.
Since Friday is a No Meat Zone, I decided to go all out yesterday and roast a bit of pork loin. I had a lot of lovely sage and thyme and pork just suggested itself. The butcher had just the thing and I was off and running. One trick I figured out was to remove the griddle/grill from my cooktop, thereby exposing the lo-o-o-o-o-ong element. I then rested the roasting pan directly on the element. Normally, cookbooks that want you to do this sort of thing suggest you use cooktop burners, but those invariably leave a cold spot in the middle, owing to the gap between said burners. But with one long element, no gap, no cold spot.
A couple of tablespoons of EVOO went in the pan and once I saw the oil shimmer, the pork, having been rubbed with sea salt, pepper and grated lemon peel went in for a sear. Most people treat these sorts of cuts (loins, tenderloins etc.) as 2 sided, when in reality they are 4-sided. So I gave it a good sear on all 4 sides. I scattered the cut-up stalks of spring onions, 7-8 cloves of whole (& intact) garlic cloves, two juiced lemons (whence the peel came), put the pork on the rack and rested the rack (with the pork) in the pan where its juices would land on the alliums involved. I added about a cup of water to the pan to give the lemon juice a "cushion" while the pork juices materialized. Then I scattered fresh thyme and sage and put it in a 275F oven w. the temperature probe (the cheaper, non-remote version of this) set for 165F.
Two hours later I took out the pan, covered the pork in aluminum foil and let it rest while I sauteed some spinach with garlic, red pepper flakes and teeny touch of anchovy...WOW. The meat was JUST done (TFBIM doesn't care for any pork under well-done, no matter that any wee ferlie beasties would have died 15F degrees earlier), juicy, tender. The garlic and oniony bits had caramelized and the meyer lemon juice had cooked down to a (not TOO) tangy glaze.
I had also a pot of fresh cranberry beans simmering with a sprig of rosemary and EVOO and garlic. Molto yummy.
-J.
