The results of “cookin them dinners”
| date: | Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - 8:14 PM UTC |
| category: | Cooking, Food, Friends |
| tags: |
So as my last post outlined, I “cooked them dinners.” My friends Michael and Hannah made it over on their way back down from New York to Charlotte. It was really nice having them. I look forward to more and more friends visiting me and letting me cook for them. I really enjoy cooking for people, see. It’s much more fun and satisfying than cooking for yourself.
Like I said, the meal I prepared for them was a roasted pork tenderloin with a rosemary herb-rub, rustic mashed potatoes and shaved asparagus. I ended up deciding it didn’t need a sauce. Partly because I couldn’t decide on a sauce for it and partly because the meat turned out plenty juicy and the taters were not dry at all.
The herb-rub was just minced up rosemary mixed with coarse sea-salt, freshly cracked black pepper and minced garlic. Rosemary is my favorite herb (mint and basil are damn close though) I applied it thoroughly to the tenderloin and it looked like this:
Now before I threw it in the oven I used a quick trick. Before you roast the tenderloin, sear it on a pan first (preferably with butter). This will brown the outside a bit and also create a crust. The seared crust helps keep juices and thus flavor in the meat. It doesn’t take long, either. Just a minute a side or so. After that I threw the pork in the oven. Another neat trick about meat out of the oven is to cover it with a wet cloth or paper towel. The steam can’t escape through the wet cloth and also wont condense on it (science!) so it stays warm and juicy.
I was pretty excited about them taters, too. I got them that morning from the local farmers market. Great red skinned potatoes. I personally prefer my mashed potatoes with red skin and I never remove the skin. The only downside I can see is I can’t do any fancy potato decorations with piping bags. I can’t really get upset about that. Besides, I prefer mashed potatoes to creamed potatoes. Simple process, too. Give the taters a rough chop to make the bits smaller and throw them in boiling water with some extra salt. Once they were soft enough I got out a tater-masher (or whatever it’s called for real) and started smashing. A few days prior I had roasted some garlic in olive oil and from that I had the byproduct of garlic infused oil. I poured that in there (I’d guess about a cup of it) along with about a tablespoon or two of milk. The flavor and texture you’ll get out of this amazed me. This was the first time I used an infused oil like that to mash potatoes. I was happy.
The asparagus also came from the farmers market and I knew it would have a really fresh, clean flavor of it’s own so I didn’t want to do much to it at all. I got out a vegetable peeler and shaved off bits (I didn’t use the outer skin because it’s a bit tougher and I think more bitter). Once I had shaved them all I tossed the shaved asparagus with cracked pepper, rice wine vinegar and a bit of olive oil. It kept the fresh taste of the asparagus with a bit of added complexity.
Here’s what it looked like plated up with some really simple presentation:
Some afterthoughts on the dish: I personally think it was too salty. For next time I’m just going to cut back the salt. I’m 100% okay with how the potatoes turned out. I may try lemon juice instead of vinegar next time for the asparagus. Not sure yet. Maybe another garnish. Something red. You eat with your eyes first!