Dine on the swine

Finding great pork recipes, for me, has been a lot like trying to find Mr. Right: elusive, clouded in mystery and dang near impossible. That is until Alton Brown offered a new batch porcine dishes in some recent Good Eats episodes.

I readily admit to not being much of a pork eater. What I encounter with other pork applications are bland, dry, tough cuts of meats. Outside of a strip or two of bacon and occasion sausage patty, I rarely dine on swine.

Being the culinary genius he is, AB had introduced a plethora of piggy goodness as of late and inspired me to try these new cuts and methods.

First up was the return of the chop to my plate. In the molasses episode, I was taken with the coffee-marinaded pork chops. I cannot tell you why, since pork is not a favorite meat, but it intrigued me enough to try.

The result, flat out awesome. Whether using an indoor stovetop grill or ol' fireball outside, these chops are most certainly worthy of being called good eats!

With the success of the chop, the newer pork tenderloin episode opened yet another culinary door. Since I now knew with the right technique, pork was tasty, tender and terrific, I sought out the tenderloin. And much to my surprise, they were on sale at the ol' megamart. No time like the present to plate some pig.

The lead off dish for the swine fest was AB's Pork Wellington.

After seeing this dish in the "Tender is the Pork" episode, I immediately knew that pig in the blanket was going to be on my menu soon. Having all but the tenderloin, dried apples and prosciutto ham on hand, it wasn't going to be a huge undertaking to make the piggy.

It was equally easy to make. Thanks to two great demonstrations on cleaning sliver skin from both beef and pork tenderloins, this process was very easy.


Since the grilled pork tenderloin needed, at minimum, six hour to soak this became the second dish in the pork challenge. But it wasn't playing second fiddle by any means.

From a prep standpoint, this was much easier than the other dish, simply make the marinade and soak. Cooking needed more fussing, however. Following AB's instructions, I rotated the tenderloin every two minutes for a total of 12 minutes. Then, placed the beautifully seared meat into a foil pack along with the other half of the marinade.




I loved the grilled version. It was tangy and sweet with a hint of citrus.

Both dishes highlighted the pork very well. The meat was tender and had favor. I'm sold on these dishes.

The best part of my piggy challenge was learning two new methods and learning my way around the cut. Once again, Alton has inspired me to try something new and gave me the chops to make a great meal.