Whisk Wednesdays—Mignons de Porc Arlonaise (Pork Tenderloins with Beer)

This pork tenderloin with beer dish is a crowd pleaser. But not for the cook since it involved turning the potatoes! Now if I weren't going through this Le Cordon Bleu curriculum, I wouldn't bother turning the potatoes into the perfectly seven-sided cylindrical shapes that they're supposed to be. In fact, even when I try, they don't look turned. The potatoes are boiled in salted water until tender.

After browning the meat on all sides, it's roasted in the oven for about 15 minutes. While it's roasting, I made the sauce. Sugar and vinegar are melted and caramelized (without burning as I did the first time!), and then the beer is added carefully since it sputters. This is reduced by two-thirds before stirring in the liquid gold of veal stock, which is further reduced by half.

When all the vegetables are julienned, they're sautéed in butter. Season everything and let it all mellow together in the pan before serving.

Recipe

Serves 6

18 small waxy potatoes (red or white)
Salt
2 pork tenderloins, 1½ pounds each, trimmed of fat
Freshly ground pepper
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

For the Sauce:
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup wine vinegar
¾ cup dark beer
1¼ cups Brown Veal Stock

¼ pound carrots, cut into julienne
¼ pound celery, cut into julienne
¼ pound leeks (white part only), cut into julienne
¼ pound mushrooms, trimmed, rinsed, dried, and cut into julienne
¼ pound turnips, cut into julienne
You can find the recipe for Mignons de Porc Arlonaise (Pork Tenderloins with Beer) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
The sauce had a hint of sweetness from the sugar and sour from the vinegar that paired well with the pork. My favorite part of the dish was the vegetables. They were crisp, tender and buttery. But the best part of this meal was how easy it was to prepare…in one hour I had a gourmet dinner on the table.

Next Class (I'm on vacation next week.)
• Profiteroles au Chocolat (Profiteroles with Vanilla Ice Cream and Hot Chocolate Sauce) pages 304-305

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Running total: $1,453.13 + $18.00 (pork) + $11.18 (other ingredients) = $1,482.31
($4.86 per serving)

Butter used so far: 12 pounds, 28.5 tablespoons

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::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.

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