Food Blog

Fairly fancy looking, but easy. These are just pan grilled tenderloin medallions, seasoned with rosemary, and topped with a sauce of goat cheese and pureed mushrooms. The sides are burghul, or cracked wheat, which makes a good departure from rice, and some spinach and yellow squash, wilted in bacon fat.

1 pork tenderloin cut into medallions

rosemary

oregano

butter

2-3 ozs goat cheese

1 can of mushrooms

3 shallots

1 cup burghul

boullion cube (lamb or pork)

1 yellow squash, julienned

baby spinach

smoked bacon

I rinsed the burghul, like the instructions said, and threw it in a pot with half a stick of butter, and cooked it until it just had some color, then put in 2 cups of water and a chopped shallot. I happened to have a lamb boullion cube, which thrown in, was perfect. I covered and simmered it for 20 minutes. In the meantime I tossed the medallions in salt pepper, lots of dried rosemary, and some oregano. I pan grilled them, browning both sides, with the another chopped shallot, added a little water, and put the pan in a 400 F oven to finish.

Then I went on to the sauce - browning the can of mushrooms in some butter, with a chopped shallot and 3-4 diced cherry tomatoes. I pureed this mixture, but not going past the point where it didn’t have a little texture left. It went back into 2 T of melted butter and 2-3 ozs of goat cheese. I had some french feta left from another meal, so I threw in 2 T or so. I think that gave the right amount of saltiness. I whisked this all up until it was melted and mixed well. The pork came out to rest for a minute, and some of the liquid from the grill pan got whisked in and reduced in the sauce

I few strips of my favorite kolozsvari bacon went into a pan and had its fat rendered out. The bacon was removed and I poured some of the fat from the pan, saving it. I didn’t want to fry the spinach, just wilt it. The squash went in first, then I did two or three small batches of spinach, just throwing them into a pan wet with the hot fat, tossing it, and removing them after 10 seconds or so, adding a bit of the reserved grease for each batch.

The pork went onto the burghul, topped with the sauce, and sided with the greens and squash which got sprinkled with a bit of the diced bacon. I really liked the burghul, and will use this a lot from now on. The squash was a nice touch to tone down the wilted spinach, which may have been a touch too bitter from picking up too much of the smoky fat.