Reinventing a Classic- Pork a L'Orange

Well I don't think I have to clarify to anyone that I absolutely love pork. After all, I am a long-time Iowa girl and I often choose pork as my preferred protein when creating new recipes. What's not to love about pork- it's lean, delicious and juicy, and right now one of the most affordable meats on the market. A far cry from the days of pork chops fried to the point of old shoe leather, today's pork is nearly foolproof. It's no wonder I've taken such an interest in adapting classic vintage recipes to a new pork twist. Take this classic French dish, A L'Orange, the timeless roasted duck with orange sauce. Citrus goes so perfect with pork, I'm sure you will love this dish as much as I do.

Widely known as a classic French dish, Duck a L'Orange has a foggy history. Many Italians claim it was stolen from them. Asian cooks all have their own interpretation of the dish as well, with warm spices. Food historians claim the dish may date back thousands of years to regions of the Middle East, where pairing citrus fruits with fatty meats like duck was quite common. Regardless of where and when it was first created, it enjoyed a huge surge in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s in Europe and the United States. I can remember my dad, the original seventies-era foodie, roasting duck on Christmas Day, slowly rendering out all that lovely fat, crisping the skin, and then lovingly basting on the orange juice mixture until the duck was a deep golden brown and more fragrant than any other dish I ever remember him cooking. Growing up in a family of Minnesota hunters and anglers, wild duck and pheasant were more often than not part of the holiday menu and duck was without a doubt my favorite.

As an adult I've grown quite attached to traditional French recipes. Of course, that does not mean that I am going to prepare them "by the book"- I am way too much of a rebel for that! So I set about perfecting the orange sauce so that it accompanies pork in just as a delicious a fashion as the original duck, and comes together quickly with readily available ingredients and I think I've hit it with this recipe. I pored over numerous recipes before coming up with what I think is the best adaptation, and because I used so many recipes for reference, I honestly can't claim this as "mine" except for the super simple sauce. After all, roast pork is a kitchen standard every cook should master.

Make this recipe on a heavy baking sheet with a rim. If you use a large sheet you can make a one-pan dinner, which is a pretty popular trend right now- sheet pan suppers.

Pork A L'Orange

1 boneless pork tenderloin roast, 2-3 lb
salt, pepper, meat seasoning of choice
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
cooking oil
baby potatoes, scrubbed
1 lb haricots vert, or fresh green beans, trimmed

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Use a heavy rimmed baking sheet. Spread a couple tablespoons of oil in the baking sheet. Pat the roast dry with paper towels. Season well with salt and pepper or your favorite meat seasoning or rub. I used both Montreal Steak Seasoning and Feiny's Everything Rub. Place the roast on the baking sheet. Combine the marmalade, lemon juice and mustard. Spoon over the roast.

Add the baby potatoes to the baking sheet, rolling around in the oil to coat the potatoes. Sprinkle with additional seasoning. Roast for 30 minutes.

On a second baking sheet, spread another tablespoon or so of oil. Add the haricots vert and toss in the oil. Sprinkle liberally with the seasoning. Place in the oven with the potatoes and pork. Roast until the meat registers 145 degrees. This should be 15-30 minutes more. Check the temp of the meat at 15 minutes. Remove from oven, place the meat on a board and tent with foil. Allow the meat to rest ten minutes. Slice the meat on the diagonal and serve with roasted potatoes and beans, drizzle with pan juices if desired. Sprinkle with freshly chopped herbs, such as thyme or parsley, if you like. 

Rest your roast! You'll keep the juice in the meat and off
your board

Right now pork is such an affordable option and this recipe really dresses up what can sometimes be a boring cut of meat. It's elegant enough for dinner guests or date night, and quick enough for a weeknight dinner. No need for a fancy sauce either- this roast makes its own with the pan juices and the orange marmalade. The juices melt the kinda-burned spots of the marmalade on the pan and create a rich caramelly drizzle that's really really good stuff.

Even the leftovers look delicious. Drizzle any leftovers
with a little of those caramelly pan juices.

The best time for making a roast is when it's cold and nasty outside. If I described the forecast for Des Moines right now you would be just as disgusted as me- snow and lots of it. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE winter, just not two feet of it. I might as well crank up the oven and throw in a pork roast, whip up some orange sauce, roast some baby potatoes and haricots vert and daydream about having lunch on a sunny day in a Parisian cafe. Sure beats the view out my window- swirling piles of snow.

The Gerwegian girl's braciole

I was so surprised the other day- at the grocery store they had the BIG pieces of round steak. The big ones- like I remember as a child, my mom slicing up and making pepper steak or stroganoff, or pounding the everloving life out of and smothering with cream-of-something soup and baking for a couple hours. Not the fanciest cut by any means, but certainly one of my favorite if for nothing but the memories. Anyway, there it was in the meat department beckoning to me to cook something really good.

If it was the right time of year, pepper steak would have been my first choice but in general I avoid certain kinds of grocery store produce in the winter, like tomatoes and peppers. It's just not the same as fresh from the garden or farmers market. Mushrooms, however, are available year round and pretty consistent PLUS they had a nice basket of fresh shiitakes begging to be taken home. Inspired by the recent picture a friend had shared with me, I decided a stuffed steak was in order.

What I ended up with is my own version of Braciole- without the Italian flavor profile. Mushrooms are a natural with steak and so easy to chop up and create a stuffing with. The shiitkes are a real treat to work with- once you pinch off and throw away the inedible stem they cut up into perfect firm little cubes of delicious. I chose cremini as my other mushroom (although I bought some of every kind they had in the store that day!), a little onion, garlic, some stale bread (do YOU keep your bread butts in the freezer for things like this?) and roll it up in some pounded out steak. Here is how I did it-

Mushroom Braciole

about 2 lb round steak (or similar- flat iron, flank steak, etc)

1 small onion

4 cloves garlic

4 slices stale bread

1 tsp chopped thyme

8 oz mushrooms- I used shiitake and cremini

salt and pepper

2 cups beef stock

1 tablespoon cornstarch

olive oil

2 tb butter

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Cut or tear the bread into small pieces and spread out to let it dry as much as possible, set aside for now.

Cut the meat into 6 equal portions. Pound using a meat mallet until flattened and even in thickness. Pounding out to the right shape is a little tricky but try to get the pieces as rectangular as possible. I was so busy pounding away The Chef finally asked me if I was ever going to be done or was I building a garage.......sigh...... Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Finely chop the onion and garlic and place in bowl. Clean the mushrooms, trim off the stem ends (remove tough shiitake stems) and chop into small dice and add to bowl. 

In a medium skillet heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and butter. Add the onions, garlic, mushrooms, thyme and season with salt and pepper. Cook for several minutes until onions are softened and mushrooms begin to brown. Meanwhile, crumble the bread as much as possible in a medium bowl. Pour the mushroom onion mixture over and mix well. It might be a little dry, not like stuffing you'd serve at the holidays- that's ok, it doesn't need to be super moist.

Grab a piece of steak and place a scoop of the stuffing on it. Pat it and spread it out over the meat surface evenly, leaving a little edge uncovered. 

Roll up and secure with picks, or tie with string if you're especially handy like that. I use picks because, well..... I'm not. Continue with all pieces of steak until done. 

You might have some leftover stuffing. I did because I could only get 5 portions from my steak, and Louie enjoyed it thoroughly.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in that skillet you cooked the mushrooms in and brown the rolls on the outside; place in dutch oven or covered roaster/braiser. 

Mix the cornstarch into the beef broth while browning the meat and when done, deglaze the skillet with the broth. Whisk over medium high heat until slightly thickened and bubbly. Ladle sauce over the braciole in the pot; cover and bake for one hour and 15 minutes.

When done, remove from oven and let rest a few minutes so the stuffing will firm up just a bit. Remove picks from rolls and slice. Serve with pasta, rice or potatoes and the sauce. I have been making this dish for years and years and it's one of my favorites. Not very "gourmet" but certainly delicious and an old family favorite. Oh, I almost forgot- the Gerwegian??  German and Norwegian of course!

Christmas Dinner for Two

Celebrating with the families yesterday meant a nice quiet day at the lake for The Chef and me. But dinner for two at our house doesn't mean hamburger or tuna salad. Since we didn't have to cook for a crowd, a great big turkey was a little out of the question and we opted instead for one my very favorite things of all- to cook and to eat- roast chicken.

Roasting a chicken is one of the easiest things to master. They key ingredients are simple: a chicken, an apple, an onion, salt and pepper, butter and a MEAT THERMOMETER. Always choose a chicken as large as you can find for roasting. They cook better and more evenly and are much juicier. If your chicken has been frozen, make sure it is COMPLETELY thawed before roasting. Always rinse the chicken inside and out, make sure you remove giblets, if included, and pat the skin dry with a paper towel. At this point you probably want to know what the heck the apple is for. I always, always, always stuff whole poultry (chicken, turkey, cornish hens) with a quartered apple and a quartered onion. If it's cornish hens, cube the apple and onion smaller, and if you're roasting a turkey, add a carrot or two and a stalk of celery or two, with the leaves, cut into big chunks. Sounds weird, but you'll thank me later.

Pat the chicken dry all over and rub all over with softened butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and if like (and I do !!) sprinkle your chicken all over with herbs- today I used Fines Herbes from Penzey's, crumbled thyme from my garden, freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt.

Put the chicken on a rack on a roasting pan and add 2 cups or more of chicken broth/stock to the bottom of the pan. Roast at 325-350 degrees until the chicken is browned, the skin is crispy and the meat thermometer registers 170 degrees (ALWAYS test in the meatiest part of the thigh, being careful not to touch bones when testing). I basted the chicken 4 or 5 times during roasting with the pan juices and had to add a cup of water once. This is especially important if you want to use the drippings for gravy. I stink at making gravy so since we're having a rice dish, I'm not making gravy. After removing from the oven and testing the temperature, let the chicken rest for 15 minutes or so to redistribute the juices before carving.

With our chicken we had a little rice pilaf, green beans almandine, roast acorn squash from our garden and homemade cranberry sauce. All easy to make, all delicious !!

We kind of "wing it" when making rice, but it's pretty easy adjust seasonings to what you like.

Wild Rice Pilaf

1/2 cup wild rice, uncooked
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt, pepper
1 tb Fines Herbes
butter

I melted the butter in a small saucepan and sauteed the onion and garlic briefly, then added the rice, a little salt and pepper, and about a tablespoon of dried chives. I added 3 cups of chicken stock to the pot and brought to boil, covered and simmered about 30 minutes- the rice isn't fully cooked at this point. Then I added 1 cup long grain rice, brought to boil again, covered and simmered for about 10 minutes then removed from heat and let stand about 15 minutes. Before serving, fluff with a fork.

Green Beans Almandine- probably one of the easiest sides ever. I melted a tablespoon of butter in a skillet and toasted a palmful of slivered almonds until golden and butter is just beginning to brown. I cooked frozen green beans just until done (steamed) then drained well and tossed with the almonds, butter and a big pinch of sea salt.

The acorn squash came from our garden and have been hiding out in the cabinet just waiting to be eaten. Another super easy side dish, I made these just like my mother always did, split in half, removed the seeds,  and filled each with a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a pinch of salt and a pinch of cinnamon. Roasted in the oven alongside the yummy chicken, they take about an hour to an hour and a half.

I looooove cranberry sauce. I just can't imagine roast bird of any kind without them !! And I do buy canned sometimes but with a half a bag of fresh cranberries hiding out in the freezer it was super easy to throw them in a small saucepan with a cup of sugar, pinch of salt, cup of water and......a couple dashes of Tabasco sauce for a hidden kick.

We still have cake balls from yesterday so no dessert was necessary, and I will be sneaking slices of bread with butter and cranberries later tonight !!

2011 is on the way out- and I'm not too sad to see her gone. It was a year of pretty intense ups and downs, and ending on a high note, with everyone in this house happy at work, healthy and looking forward to the future- all I can say is Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !!

Gobble Gobble Gobble !!!

Oh, if you could only hear my turkey impersonation...... maybe it's good that you can't !!!

I am a Thanksgiving baby and therefore, I love turkey, and I have lots to be thankful for right now. Two simple facts. We also happened to have a boneless turkey breast in the freezer, so......why not ??  It's fallish outside (if you call the 70s in Iowa in October "fallish") and almost November !!! And with the Chef's and my new work schedules, we haven't really done a lot of real cooking the last couple weeks. All the more reasons to spend a leisurely Sunday puttering around the kitchen with the sounds of NFL football in the background.

So I planned my little mini-Thanksgiving menu without having to make a single trip to the store for something I was missing- amazing !!! Roast turkey breast with chestnut stuffing. Roast baby yukon gold potatoes and baby carrots, and cranberry sauce (can't have turkey without cranberries !!) Easy enough !!

I started with a FULLY THAWED boneless turkey breast roast (about 3 lb). This one came with that little net bag on it, but I always cut that off before I cook it, I think they are messy and unnecessary and if you like the crispy brown turkey skin, that stupid string thing always messes up the skin.

You can still see the imprint from that net but after it roasts, that goes away. I sprinkled the roast all over with freshly cracked black pepper, some lemon herb seasoning and crushed dried thyme, and then cut a couple bacon strips in half and laid them across the top.

I should probably specify that I used just regular bacon, not maple or apple or any fruity flavor- just plain old regular bacon. Into a 350 degree oven the yummy little bird went for a nice roast. After about an hour and a half I added enough baby carrots and baby yukon gold potatoes to the roasting pan for the two of us.

I didn't think there was enough drippings yet to really coat the veggies so I added a couple tablespoons of browned butter with sage that I had in the fridge (but you could use just butter, or a little butter and a pinch of sage if you like or even bacon fat if you have it). Back into the oven for another hour and it came out perfectly juicy with the veggies absolutely perfect. Total roasting time was just about 2 1/2 hours for our 3 lb breast, if you rely on a thermometer, you want to shoot for 170-175 degrees.

And I'm not gonna lie- I stink at making gravy, so I used the little gravy packet that came with the turkey- just added some of the turkey drippings to it.

Besides the turkey and veggies I also made a small batch of chestnut stuffing. I loooooove chestnuts and I try to get some every fall to use in different recipes. For my stuffing I used 6 hot dog buns, cut up into small cubes and left out to dry most of the day,

about 1/4 chopped celery with leaves, 1/2 small onion diced, 1/4 chopped chestnuts (I used the roasted jarred chestnuts from Williams Sonoma),

about 1/2 to 3/4 cup chicken broth, a couple tablespoons butter, freshly cracked black pepper and crushed dried sage leaves (1/2 tsp to a tsp to taste).  Melt the butter in a small skillet and saute the onion and celery until softened but not brown.

Toss the cooked vegetables with the bread cubes n a large bowl.

Drizzle with chicken broth and toss until evenly moist. Pile into baking dish that's been sprayed with cooking spray and dot with a little bit more butter. Cover with foil and put in the 350 degree oven with the turkey for about an hour. I remove the foil the last 15 minutes or so to brown and crisp the top.

Dinner turned out really good- just like real Thanksgiving !!! Except with no pumpkin pie.....bummer......