Thursday, January 20, 2011

Welcome To Dinner At the Hawthornes.

Rosie's cleaning out her fridge and freezer this afternoon and putting together a rather eclectic meal. Once again, you get a peak into the inner workings of Rosie's brain, where the hamsters never stop running on their treadmill, as Rosie produces a meal. A few days ago, I bought a pork loin on sale for $1.98/pound. I trimmed the loin of fat, and cut it into a roast, 8 medallions, and diced the rest for my pork and pineapple tacos, which, by the way, were muy bueno. Today, I'm using the roast for dinner.
Here's din din. Stuffed pork roulade, maitake mushrooms, asparagus with onions and lettuce.
Shot of the pork roulade and stuffing.
My pork roast was just shy of 2 pounds.
To cut the pork for the roulade, take a sharp knife and starting at the top, make about a 1/8 - 1/4 inch slice and make your way down to the bottom.
Pull the meat back with one hand while you're gently slicing and teasing the meat with the other hand.
Remember, you want to end up with a thin rectangle of meat.
Like so.
Then I took a mallet to the meat, starting in the middle and working my way to the sides, to thin it out a bit. Now, I need to start thinking about what to stuff it with.
Hmmm. Cranberries. Leftover from Thanksgiving. That'll work.
I zested one orange into the berries ...
... juiced the orange ...
... added a little sugar to cut back on the tartness ...
... and decided to pour in a little more OJ.
Simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until cranberries have cooked down.
Other elements going into the stuffing: sweet pepper celery onion parsley
And pretzels.
Yup. You heard me correctly.
Crushed pretzels.
Mr. Hawthorne loves his chestnuts, so they're going into this dish too. To roast chestnuts, slice an X in the nut and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes.
Be sure you mark an X in the chestnuts, else they might explode in your oven and oven explosions are never a good thing. You can trust Rosie on this.
Chestnuts are ready to peel.
Peel and chop chestnuts.
I added a little olive oil over top the pork and salt and pepper.
Ingredients ready for stuffing: Pork and cranberry at top. Pretzels and chestnuts on right. Celery, onion, parsley, and pepper on the left.
First I spread the cranberry mixture evenly over the pork.
Sprinkle on the chestnuts.
Onion.
Celery and pepper.
Parsley.
Neaten it up a bit.
Pretzels.
Top with pats of butter.
Start rolling up, tightly.
Secure with string.
Pour a little oil over top.
Massage it.
Salt and pepper.
I added a little oil in my pan ...
... and set it in my oven which is heating up to 400 degrees.
When oven gets to 400 degrees, I seared the pork roulade all over.
Wait ... I have maitake mushrooms.
Interesting little fungus.
Chopped shrooms go into pan ...
... along with the stuffing that didn't get stuffed.
A little wine and this goes into a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees and cook for 15 more minutes.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hawthorne prepares asparagus. A little butter in the pan to bubbly, then add in the asparagus.
Slice in some red onion.
And some iceberg lettuce. Just to wilt.
Asparagus is ready.
Pork is ready. Let sit about 7 minutes before slicing to let the meat juices redistribute.
Rosie's roulade.
I liked this pork. It was cooked just right. You want your pork slightly on the pink side. Not white. Not gray. Most people I know overcook pork, and it comes out dry and tasteless. This pork was juicy and ... porky. You have the tart and sweet of the cranberries balanced by the saltiness of the pretzels, with some crunch and flavor of celery and peppers, with an earthy undertone of chestnuts and onions, along with the zing of the parsley. The shrooms had soaked up some of the pan juices plus the wine, so they were a nice addition. The asparagus with the fresh lettuce was a nice, light, green touch.
And we haven't seen the end of this pork yet, nor of my green chile cornbread. But you'll have to wait for breakfast tomorrow.

4 comments:

SweetPhyl said...

Lovely roulade Rosie, not sure about the wilted iceberg though. How do you keep it from smliming out on ya? I have visions of Mr. H. eating directly from the pan as there's NO way that stuff holds longer than a couple of seconds before turning into lettuxce that appears at the bottom of the veg drawer after being hidden for a week under the bag of zucchini you stored on top of it.

Rosie Hawthorne said...

SweetPhyl, barely wilted lettuce is wonderful. I also make a green pea, onion, and mushroom dish with the wilted lettuce that's quite good.

Rosie Hawthorne said...

Phyll, here's the pea/mushroom/lettuce dish:

http://www.kitchensaremonkeybusiness.com/2008/06/rosies-dinner-060808.html

SweetPhyl said...

ooh thanks Rosie...I'm gonna try it,based soley on your recommendation! Something tells me that I'll love it and wonder how the heck I've survived all these years withou eating wilted iceberg.