Ginger Pork Loin and Lemony Pea Tendrils

From Dish Jodi:

The night after Valentine’s, we made up for the previous night’s pasta and pizza binge at our local italian joint. The people watching on Valentine’s Day was amazing; the 50 year old guy fussing over wine, while his 20-something date stared into oblivion; the guy who clearly forgot to make reservations who stands silent and sheepish while his date freaks out, demanding to be sat at every (reserved) table she can see from the front desk. And our waitress, bless her soul, who was so terrible that the rest of the staff had to help her out. I hope she got to go home to a sweet Valentine to make up for her stressful night.

But anyway – tonight it’s back to simple and healthy. I LOVE pea tendrils, pea shoots, even peas themselves. Sweet, crisp and I feel like I’m filling my body with vitamins with every bite. Some bright marinade on a pork tenderloin and a lemony saute of green goodness and it’s the perfect light dinner.

Ingredients
1/2 C Soy Sauce
1/4 C Lemon Juice
2 T Grated Fresh Ginger
1/2 t Red Pepper Flakes
1 T Butter
Olive Oil
Quarter of a red onion, sliced thinly
Big Bunch of Fresh Pea Tendrils
1 T Grated Lemon Zest
Squirt of Lemon Juice

Mix soy sauce, ginger, pepper and lemon juice in a large bowl and marinate the pork loin in it for a least a half an hour.

Preheat oven to 350. Heat up a large pan on the stove with oil, and sear outside of loin. Then put pan and loin in the oven for 15 minutes or until cooked to you liking. Let rest.

While the meat rests, melt butter and a few more bloops of oil in a pan (I am just using the same one, wiped out) and toss in the onions. Cook until soft. Toss with pea tendrils til they are wilted. Throw in grated zest and big final squeeze of lemon juice and toss.


Plate the greens and top with slices of pork. Enjoy.

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Pork Chops with Mustard-Fig Sauce aka Pig, Figged

From Dish Erin:

My husband makes fun of me all the time for my obsession with figs. Fresh, dried, reconstituted, I seriously heart figs.  Dates and prunes, too.  All three of which remind Dave of ‘old people’ food, prompting him to ask me, as I’m elbow deep in a bowl of dates and figs, “Who are you, my grandfather?!”

So imagine his trepidation when he came home after a long day of work to find me prepping a dinner made with figs. Never one to doubt his fearless chef who rarely disappoints in the kitchen, he gave it a shot. Afterward he told me it was one of the best dishes I’ve ever made. I think it was such a hit because it’s sweet and figgy enough to please a fig lover like me, but subtle enough not to be overpowering for a fig-novice like Dave. 

I served this with some rainbow chard.  To prepare, wash thoroughly and roughly chop, discarding of woody stems, then follow directions below.

Olive oil for sautéing 
Zest of 1 lemon, plus 2 tablespoons of juice 
1 medium shallot, slice
1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
4 dried figs, cut into thin slices 
Two 1 1/4-inch-thick boneless pork loin chops 
1/3 chicken stock 
2 tablespoons one of the following: dry white wine, sherry or apple cider vinegar (I used sherry vinegar but white wine would be great, as would apple cider vinegar) 
1 heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of fig jam (omit if you don’t have, it’s not a deal-breaker) 
2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter

Pat pork dry and season with salt and pepper. In a skillet heat oil over moderately high heat, until hot but not smoking, sauté pork until browned, about 1 minute on each side. Transfer pork to a plate and in fat remaining in skillet cook shallot, garlic and ginger, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds.


Deglaze the pan with the wine or vinegar and stir.  Add the chicken stock, lemon zest, lemon juice, and figs and stir.

Nestle the pork back into the pan and simmer, covered, 10 minutes, or until pork is just cooked through.

While this is cooking, heat a bit of olive oil, minced garlic and red pepper flakes over medium heat. Add rainbow chard and cook for about 4-5 minutes, stirring every few minutes.  If the pan is dry you can add a tablespoon of water to help steam it. Season with salt & pepper to taste.  Cover to keep warm until pork is done.

Transfer pork to 2 plates. Allow sauce to thicken, uncovered, until reduced to a sauce-like consistency, about 1 minute. Whisk butter into fig mixture until incorporated.

Serve aside the rainbow chard with some crusty bread to mop up that buttery-sweet-zesty sauce.

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Emu Egg Pasta with Pork Bolognese

Spicy Side of Meatball Andrew is such a saucy lil cook that his work, alongside supperclubs (and friends of SLD) A Razor, A Shiny Knife and Studiofeast, recently appeared in the NY Times! Scroll through the accompanying photos to spot not one, but two SL-Dudes.

(Yeah, that’s a salad in the background. So what? It’s greens, nuts and avocado. Little lemon, yummy oil, salt n’ pepa. Shoop.)

Imagine Christmas.

We all have friends and family members who we love, but are impossible to shop for.

For my father, it’s me.

Fortunately, facing this annual dilemma, you know that your recipient has a hobby, so you start from there. But chances are they already have all of the equipment to participate in that hobby. Painters have brushes. Gun enthusiasts have guns. Cooks have knives.

It comes to you in a stroke of insight! Hobbies have consumable equipment!

Painters can’t have enough hard to find paints!
Gun nuts can’t have enough rare bullets! (I’m talking about those cop killers banned in the 90s. You know what I’m talking about.)
Cooks can’t have enough exotic foods!

Um…what?

A few years ago, I told my father about Exotic Meats USA. I was cooking with the Whisk and Ladle, and we had been using boar bacon, and bear rib eyes, even the occasional alligator and rattlesnake. Exotic Meats sourced all of it.

After presumably letting the idea marinate for the intervening years, my father decided to pull the trigger this Christmas.

Enter The Emu Egg.

It’s pretty stunning.

It weighs about as much as 9-10 chicken eggs.

Step one…Open it. The shell is at least 10 times as thick as a chicken egg. So have some tools ready.

Tools + Thumbs = Victory:

Now, what do you do with it? Well, anything that takes 10 eggs. I went for fresh pasta with a pork sauce.

I make pasta by weight, with a 3:2 flour to egg ratio.

Emu Egg Pasta:
510g Emu Egg, beaten. (~1 egg)
765g All purpose Flour (use your fancy flour if you’ve got it)
15g salt (~2tsp)

Sorry for the weight measures, but it does make the dough come out perfectly.

There are two styles of pasta making:
1) Make a flour well on a work surface. Pour in the egg and salt. Slowly incorporate flour and egg with a fork until it is solid enough to use your hand. Then start to knead.
2) Throw it all in a stand mixture. Mix until incorporated. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead.
Option #1 makes you feel like an Italian grandmother, which I like. But if you don’t want to get your hands so dirty, or you like technology a lot, go for #2.
Knead the dough until it feels smooth. It should start to feel like play dough. When you pinch it, it should spring back very slightly. When you poke your finger into the middle, it shouldn’t feel sticky. This takes between 10-20 minutes.

Cover the dough with a bit of olive oil, and wrap with saran wrap, and throw in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. This is important. It lets the flour hydrate and gets the elasticity and “bite” you want in the dough.

Roll pasta in a pasta crank. Or use a rolling pin. Here I opt for technology over tradition. But it’s up to you.

Cut into fettucini-sized strips.

When you’re ready (read, after the sauce is made), get a pot of water to a boil. Add a healthy amount of salt. The pasta will take about 3 minutes to cook, depending on how thin it was rolled.

Pork Sauce:

As precise as the pasta recipe is, the sauce recipe is not.

1-2 lb pork sausage, broken apart. (as meaty as you want it)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
Half a large onion.
Half as much carrot as onion
Half as much celery as onion
1 tsp red pepper flakes (skip it if using a hot Italian sausage)
2 sprigs thyme
1 tsp dried oregano or 1 sprig fresh.
1 28oz can diced tomatoes.

First make your mirepoix – diced onion, carrot, celery in a 2:1:1 ratio. If you’re feeling particularly tight, use a scale or measuring cup, but here I eyeball it. (Fun fact: mirepoix doesn’t mean anything in French, it was a royal chef’s name.)

Heat oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Brown the sausage, and remove.

Add garlic. Cook until very lightly golden brown.

Add mirepoix. At a minimum, cook until the onions have released some liquid and are fairly translucent. (Pro tip: adding a little salt while sweating onions will keep them from browning.) At a maximum, go del posto-style, brunoise (very finely dice) the mirepoix and let it turn to mush over low heat for 4 hours.
Add pepper flakes, thyme and oregano. Let it warm a bit.
Add tomatoes. Once hot, add the sausage back in.

Simmer for at least 15 minutes, but at this point it’ll keep warm. If it gets too dry, add some water.

Toss pasta in sauce and serve.

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