Monday 23 April 2012

Pip's Pork Tenderloin with Forager's Stuffing.



Food featured quite high on the planned list of weekend activities though I was almost scuppered as there was little in the cupboards/fridge and the idea of shopping just didn't appeal. A rummage through The Ark Royal (our chest freezer) revealed some pork tenderloin steaks of various shapes and sizes - hmm, what to do to make it into a delicious meal? Off I set into the depths of our garden with my bowl and a trusty pair of scissors to hand with high hopes that there would be something I could use. A wander and a forage later, and a goodly bowlful of mixed herbs were snipped and ready to go.





I gathered some bunches of wild garlic, both the flowers and leaves, and a couple of bunches of chives. I needed these alliums as the shopping situation was so dire I didn't even have an onion left in the veg box (and you know how I just love onions) Large snippings of both lemon and ordinary thyme, parsley, oregano, golden marjoram, rosemary and sage were added with some nettle tops to add a bit of body to the mix. How beautiful do all those herbs look together and don't even get me started on the aromas drifting on the air with each snip of the scissors.





So, thus far I had mixed herbs and pork ...





Time for a cup of my favourite nettle tea in one of our gorgeous Falmouth Seagull Teacups designed and hand painted by the fabulously talented Laura Lee who is also in Cornwall! Do pop over and see her gorgeous work of which we are building quite a collection.





Back to the food and I decided to make stuffing by adding a duck egg (thank you Pecan) and some breadcrumbs made from three slices of stale bread to the roughly chopped herbs and threw in some chopped sunflower seeds for a bit more texture.





Here is the egg (!!!)





After also adding enormous slugs of olive oil and mixing thoroughly, I then spread the stuffing onto the pork pieces which I had previously bashed with a rolling pin to flatten slightly. I trussed each piece in a somewhat haphazard fashion to stop them falling apart in the cooking process and drenched with more oil before placing in a warmed oven at gas mark 4 for just over an hour, basting every so often with the meat juices.





And it came out looking like this! Golden, fragrant and tender as can be.





Succulent slices of the tenderest meat wrapped around scrumptiously scented herbs and seeds.





It really was very good and all the troops agreed, hence it is now written into our family Bible (our recipe stash)for future use, though truthfully this recipe could be changed according to what you have on hand - dried apricots, toasted hazlenuts, different herbs...all would be great.



So there you have it: Pip's Pork Tenderloin with Forager's Stuffing. What did you have for Sunday lunch? x

27 comments:

  1. Oh, that looks deeeelicious. Our Sunday lunch was not worth mentioning but for dinner we had a roasted chicken (as we do three weeks out of four) with a new-to-me recipe for caramelised swede with sage and onion from Hugh FW's Veg book. Yum.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Our Ark Royal only supplied the breadcrumbs for my sage and onion stuffing yesterday, but it is fascinating to see what sometimes comes out of there - defrosting doesn't always solve the puzzle. Lovely post - feel free to come and cook from my freezer any day. x

    ReplyDelete
  3. That looks amazing - we love pork in our house so that's definitely one to try! Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Simply drooling into my keyboard here! That looks divine. I will try that one, thanks for the recipe.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow that looks amazing and that's from a vegetarian! You remind me of Barbara from The Good Life! X

    ReplyDelete
  6. In answer to your question ... nothing as wonderful as this! I'm not much of a meat eater, never have been, and I seem to be pretty hopeless when it comes to doing inventive things with it. So I've filed Pip's Pork away for future reference. Thank you :D

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow - I'd order that in a restaurant. How clever of you to forage. Alex x

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  8. I didn't have anything that delicious I can tell you Pip! The mention of all those herbs has me longing for some warm weather now. My lovely thymes sadly succumbed to the winter weather (I did think they were as tough as old boots, metaphorically speaking of course) and I look forward to replacing them in the 'dry'(!) garden hopefully soon!

    Your garden looks lovely!

    Jeanne
    x

    ReplyDelete
  9. That looks and sounds scrumptious. Our Sunday lunch was good too, we went out to celebrate the Model's birthday .. although we ate at 5pm!

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  10. Yum! I especially like it when you can conjure a meal from what appears to be nothing! It seems to make it all the more delicious.

    We don't eat cooked lunches, find it interferes with the flow of the day too much, so would usually grab some soup or a sandwich. Big meals here happen in the evening, we have Dinner around 7ish. Sunday's was was Italian meat balls I'd made from pork and beef mince, along with masses of red wine, passatta, last year's moon dried tomatoes from the freezer with masses of fresh basil and rigatoni.

    I saved the roast for Monday with it being St George's Day, and we had the whole roast Beef and Yorky Pud fest, using home laid eggs and horse radish from the lottie.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow, Pipany, that sounds inventive and delicious. I've written it down and can't wait to try it.

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