If you have the tomatillo salsa on hand, roasted pork with tomatillo sauce is a quick and easy meal. The salsa darkens as it cooks in the rendered pork fat. The sauce picks up the flavours of the meat to really come together nicely. I used pork tenderloin because I was jammed for time but you could do it with a small pork loin as well. Just up the amount of tomatillo salsa you use to line up with the amount of meat you are preparing.
If you want to build a menu around the tomatillo salsa (to make it worth your while) consider serving some nachos. Just substitute the tomatillo salsa for red salsa. You could make tortilla soup and spoon in a bit of the salsa as a garnish. Lots of possibilities.
Roasted Pork with Tomatillo Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 14 oz pork tenderloin
- 1/2 cup tomatillo salsa
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 385F.
- In an oven-proof skillet heat the oil and sear the pork on all sides.
- Place pork in the oven. You are looking for an internal temp of 135F. This is about 10 minutes for the tenderloin. Likely around an hour or so for the pork loin.
- Remove pork from oven. Remove pork from pan and tent with foil.
- Place pan over medium heat, deglaze the pan with the tomatillo salsa, stirring constantly. Fry the tomatillo salsa for about 1 minute. If the sauce is too thick add a few Tbsp chicken stock.
- Carve the pork. Return any accumulated juices to the sauce and stir.
Notes
Roasted Pork with Tomatillo Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 14 oz pork tenderloin
- 1/2 cup tomatillo salsa
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 385F.
- In an oven-proof skillet heat the oil and sear the pork on all sides.
- Place pork in the oven. You are looking for an internal temp of 135F. This is about 10 minutes for the tenderloin. Likely around an hour or so for the pork loin.
- Remove pork from oven. Remove pork from pan and tent with foil.
- Place pan over medium heat, deglaze the pan with the tomatillo salsa, stirring constantly. Fry the tomatillo salsa for about 1 minute. If the sauce is too thick add a few Tbsp chicken stock.
- Carve the pork. Return any accumulated juices to the sauce and stir.
Notes
Concentrated veal stock is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Any veal stock is good. Use it in your cooking. But concentrated veal stock – that’s magic. Concentrating it makes it easier to store in the freezer. That way, it’s just there and ready when you need it. And you will need it with beef and with lamb. It’s not full blown demi-glace but it adds that unbelievable richness to sauces.
Roast the bones before making the stock for a dark rich flavour. For a lighter flavour you can skip the roasting. I like roasted better. Don’t go too heavy on any other ingredients. Personally I use one onion per big pot of stock. Flavours intensify when reducing so things can get unbalanced pretty easily.
I make a batch of it and freeze it in ice cube trays. If you have a vac pac food saver you can use that to store it – otherwise ziplock backs work. I put 4-5 cubes in each vac pac. This recipe makes about 30 cubes or about 1 quart.
concentrated veal stock
Ingredients
- 7 lbs veal bones
- 1 onion halved
- Water to cover bones
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 375F
- Place veal bones on a cookie sheet large enough to contain them in a single layer.
- Roast for 1 hour turning the bones halfway.
- Place bones and onion in a large pot and cover with cold water.
- Bring to a boil and simmer for 12-15 hours.
- Remove bones from pot and strain stock.
- Reduce to about 1 quart.
- Cool and freeze (ice cube trays make for nice portions) or use within 3 days.
