Put More Pork on Your Fork

Sometimes recipe ideas present themselves when you aren’t looking for them. This one came about, in of all places, my osteopath’s waiting room. The waiting room usual requisite supply of out-of-date magazines, and a nice change from the usual “rag mags” one gets, the selection there is usually a little more interesting as there are often options like English Heritage’s magazine, Classic FM’s magazine and Saga’s magazine. I found this recipe leafing through an old copy of Good Housekeeping and wrote it down as I happened to have the required ingredients in the cupboard.

Whether or not it counts as low-residue is up for debate because of the spicy-ness, but I’m going to call it low-residue/low-fibre because I ignored the part of the original recipe which involved a side of some kind of Bulgar type grain (hello fibre!) and kale (hello yuck!). So I stuck with the beasty part of the recipe and did my own side.

This is for a pork tenderloin, one about 400g or so.

On a piece of baking paper, mix the following -

2 tsp of smoked paprika
1 tsp of all spice
1/4 tsp of sea salt
1/4 tsp of fresh ground pepper

My spicy interpretation of a pig?

Spread it out on the paper (and if you fancy, draw some pictures in it), then roll up the meat in the mixture in the paper.

It tastes better than it looks

Wrap tightly in the paper and put in the fridge for about 40 minutes.
 

Looks like something suspicious from the butchers

Preheat the oven to 200C. In a large frying pan, heat 1 tbsp of olive oil , then brown the meat on all sides.

I had to cut it in two to fit it in the pan

Then transfer to a baking dish and cook for 30 to 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, wash and de-steam some baby spinach and steam that for about five minutes. Boil the kettle to make 3/4 cup of chicken stock with a stock cube. Once made, add it to 2/3 of a cup of couscous (that happily served two with some leftovers) and put the lid on for 5 minutes until the water is absorbed. Fluff with a fork, mix in a bit of basil, then mix in the spinach.

When the meat is done, cut up the meat  . . .

 .... and serve with the couscous.

Voila! Tasty piggy!!

Okay, not that kind of piggy!

It was rather nice, but it was a bit spicy, and I probably could have left out the black pepper and still had it be rather tasty.