Orange Sesame Pork, Part 2

Because the leftovers of this dish were pretty decent, I'm going to post the recipe.  I don't think it's a shining example of what could be done with a pork tenderloin, but it was very easy to do and the results were yummy.

Orange Sesame Pork

Ingredients (Serves 5?)

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 cup orange juice

4 cloves garlic, chopped

pinch red pepper flakes

1 package of pork tenderloins (should contain 2 of them)

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Wrap a 13x9 dish in tin foil (or use cooking spray on the glass).

Trim fat off of pork tenderloin, and remove the silver skin; place in baking dish.

In a bowl, combine vinegar, soy sauce, orange juice, garlic, and red pepper flakes.

Pour the mixture over the pork.

Roast for 10 minutes in the oven, then turn over.  

Roast for 10 or 15 minutes more, or until 150 degrees.

While roasting, in a small skillet, toast sesame seeds over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

Transfer the pork to the cutting board, and let sit for 10 minutes.

Cut the meat diagonally in long, thin slices.

Transfer pork to plate, and spoon the juices over; sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Orange Sesame Pork

I haven't had much of a chance to write for the past few months because of school work, so I thought it might be a good time to pull out one of the cookbooks in my arsenal that was waiting for me, called Quick & Easy Meals by the American Heart Association.  I purchased it in an effort to learn how to make healthier meals in a reasonable amount of time, so it could work better with my busier schedule.

The first recipe I tried from this book was called Orange Sesame Pork.  It's very simple; all I did was mix a few ingredients, and bake a pork tenderloin for about 25 minutes.  The most challenging part of this was learning how to properly trim the pork tenderloin.  I knew Alton Brown had mentioned this in one of the episodes of Good Eats, so I did some quick research and found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3vyEEmFT5Q .  The part of the video that was the most useful was the reminder to remove what is called the silver skin, which is the inedible silvery part on the meat that is not fat.  One of the other things I learned (that Alton also mentioned in the video) is that the packages of pork tenderloin come with two loins, which means....leftovers.

Jeff does not like leftovers, and I'm not fond of them either.  I've gotten very good at cooking the exact portions for a meal just to avoid them.  However,  I was stuck in an odd place, because I had three options:  Cook the second loin, repackage and store the second loin, or trash it.  I figured the safest bet for me was to cook it along with the first, that way the idea of having it for dinner tomorrow might actually happen.

By the time I was done letting it rest and had everything sliced, the meat was luke warm, but tasty and tender.  Jeff made the comment that this recipe wasn't particularly quick, so I explained to him that this new book has varying levels of quick and varying levels of easy.  This one wasn't quick, but it was very easy.  Whether or not I will post the recipe will depend on how well the leftovers taste tomorrow.